


holy monster, cursed god

by WelcomeToTheBadlands



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempt at Humor, Ben Solo is a Mess, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Monster Rey, Monsters, Rey (Star Wars) is a Mess, Slow Burn, Wings, except its more like Rivals to Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:28:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 72,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26170444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WelcomeToTheBadlands/pseuds/WelcomeToTheBadlands
Summary: A long war has been raging between two kingdoms. King Sheev Palpatine wants to manipulate dark magic and build an army of corrupted beings, able to wipe out all of the Resistance. A small and seemingly rag-tag group of people band together, with the intent to kill the king.Smoke billowed from the ashen wasteland, occasionally an ember popped up from the ground and tried to burn Ben's skin. "I would get off your high horse, cleric." The monster told him. "I'm on the same side as you,"
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 53
Kudos: 69
Collections: Reylo Halloween Collection





	1. Doomed From The Start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [splintered_souls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/splintered_souls/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“And there were two beings in the beginning, the light and the dark. This is how creation started,”_ – **The Scripts of Jedi Mages**

The battlefield was a barren wasteland by the time that the group had gotten there. Each tent that had been erected in the Rebel camp was smoldering or still ablaze, and the sky was nearly black. Rose coughed, grimacing as she picked up a sword, half shattered. The smell of burning flesh permeated the air and Kaydel gagged, sighing before she started inspecting the piles of bodies for anyone that was still living. Jannah had her bow poised, ready to nock it and shoot someone in case there were still enemy combatants in the area. “What the hell happened?” Poe hissed. “This place was protected,”

“I think it’s pretty obvious,” Rose said, staring at the carnage in disgust. “The same thing that always happens when the First Order is involved,”

Poe sighed, “God damn it.” He gripped his dagger with an iron grip, not eager to stay there when there could still be people around here, ready to kill any of the Resistance that had come back to the camp. A large black shape loomed overhead and Kaydel glanced up.

“Do you think that Rey found something?” Kaydel asked.

“I think that she would’ve told us if she had found something by now,” Rose muttered.

“You’re right,” Kaydel glanced up at the sky, “she’s just circling a lot.”

“She could be hungry,” Poe shrugged, “she’s probably just trying to find something to eat. We haven’t found food in days, just let her do whatever she wants to do.” Rose nodded and went back to looting what she could of the dead bodies, Kaydel sighed and tried to find someone that was still alive so she could figure out what happened there. They weren’t successful though.

Finally, just when they were going to signal for Rey to come back to them, they saw her dark form swoop down beyond their line of sight. “Oh shit,” Poe muttered, “what do you think that she found?”

The form rose up in the sky, holding something else in its grasp, and then promptly swooped down to the rest of the group. Rey dropped the thing she was holding for a considerable height, and the rest of the group watched as a dwarven knight clad in armor dropped several feet and yelped when they hit the ground. The dwarf had the sign of the First Order on its chest. “Well then,” Kaydel chuckled, “looks like she found something.” Rey didn’t stop to chat with the rest of the group, she kept circling the skies.

This was something that the rest of the group was used to. Jannah was the first one to grab the dwarf before it could possible consider trying to run away (not that it would make it very far, Rey had dropped it from a high enough place for it to break at least one leg), “You’re not going anywhere,” She told the dwarf, ripping off it’s helmet and lifting him off his feet quite easily. The dwarf was screaming, but there was no one else around to help him. “You’re going to tell us what happened here,”

“As if,” He spat at her, Jannah jerked the dwarf violently as he tried to free himself from her grasp. Rose snorted, trying to hold back laughter, as the dwarf shouted an insult for elves at her. She wasn’t spared from the barrage of name calling coming from the dwarf as he insulted her height as a halfling.

“Hey, I’m taller than you!” She shouted.

“Rose, it’s not worth it. He realizes that he’s cornered. He’s just trying to rile us up and stop us from asking the real questions.” Rose relented and Poe stepped forward, staring at the dwarf. “I’m going to only ask you one time, or I’m going to let my friend who brought you over here deal with you, what do you know about what happened here?”

“Bite me!” He spat at Poe and he recoiled, turning to Kaydel.

“Call Rey,”

“Already on it,” Kaydel lit a flare and Rey was back within a minute, landing with a dramatic flair. Rey was not a type of creature that anyone was used to seeing. She was a tall creature, covered in feathers with two raven black wings that jutted out behind her, casting a large shadow behind her. The thing that was perhaps the most disturbing was the multiple beady black eyes that stared intensely at her target whenever she locked onto something.

“You called?”

“This guy’s not talking,”

“So, can I eat him?” Rose snickered behind her, mumbling something about how there wasn’t much meat on the dwarf in the first place.

“Well, we kind of need to know what’s going on first.” Poe said. “So preferably no,” Rey’s eyes were still locked on the target, staring the dwarf up and down as he swallowed a sizeable dry gulp.

“Shame,” Rey sighed.

“I thought you didn’t eat dwarf anyways,” Jannah said.

“I can make an exception,” Rey took a step forward, flashing sharp and pointy teeth before she said, “It’s been three days and I’m hungry.”

“Okay, okay! I’ll tell you everything, just keep that _thing_ away from me.” Rey snorted and Poe chuckled as the dwarf began to tell them everything. Poe was a little relieved to find that this was not a planned attack. The First Order had been pushing forward into Takodanan territory, but they had not expected to run across a Rebel camp so fast. So, the First Order hadn’t been tracking them, that was the only highlight of anything going on here. Once the dwarf told him where the few remaining soldiers had gone, Rey took another step forward. “Woah, woah, woah.”

“Can I eat him now?”

“I mean, he told us everything. Maybe we should just leave him be,”

“I broke his leg,” Rey shrugged, “if I don’t eat him than the vultures will.” Poe and the others all glanced at each other. Jannah still having a firm grasp on the man before she asked what the verdict was. The dwarf was screaming now.

“Nah,” Poe said, “leave him be.” Everyone knew that Rey wasn’t going to eat him, but they did know how hungry Rey was.

“F _ine,_ ” Rey said in mock disappointment, “I saw a stream a couple of miles up with some fish, you better get me something to eat soon. I’m getting testy.” Despite what she said, she smiled, Poe laughed and told her that he was.

“Come on everyone, let’s get going.” He sighed. “Leave the dwarf for the vultures,”

*

Ben Solo had always known how his life was supposed to turn out. He had everything planned out for him by the time he was born. Ben was born from a long line of holy warriors, so he was always destined for the gods to be on his shoulder. He was grateful for that. Grateful to not have to make decisions, it made his life a lot easier than a lot of people could say that their lives were. At a young age, Ben began to study to become a cleric. He was great at fighting, but he was more passionate about being able to heal people, and his mother was more than happy that he wanted to do that. She had become one after retiring from her life of fighting.

At fifteen his connect to divine magic had become more powerful than any of his elders had ever expected, and none of the other kids his age wanted to be anywhere near him. Ben spent most of his time studying, trying to be the best that he could. Sometimes Han would say something about the fact that he should be out relaxing and being a kid, Leia would say it was good that he was studying and trying to become the best that he could. “You know that there’s a war coming,” She had said, “you’ve seen his power, you know that he’s going to be needed to fight against Snoke.”

“I just feel like it’s wrong for him to be cooped up like this,” Han muttered. Leia and Han would fight a lot. Some of the more bigoted of the village would say that they fought because elves and humans weren’t supposed to mix like that, but Ben was fairly sure that the two of them were just too stubborn for their own good.

At seventeen, a lot of things changed for Ben.

It was the first time he made a strong connection with the gods, strong enough to hear their voices. It was the middle of the night, and he remembered dreaming of a field, a battle had happened here, and all that remained were the dead. He jolted awake, shivering in the cold but also drenched in sweat. That’s when he heard her.

Asaji Ventress, goddess of the dead.

_‘It’s time we talked, Ben Solo.’_

No.

His patron god was a god of the dead, that was something that he had worked to make sure didn’t happen. And yet it still did. _‘I can tell that you are disappointed, young one. I can understand why, but still, you should be grateful that you got me, and not another god. There are worse ones to have as your patron gods, gods that don’t care about you clerics.’_

_‘I’m sorry,’_ Ben thought, his heart was beating harder than it ever had before. _‘I just—wasn’t expecting this. I am fully at your service,’_

_‘Good, so you’re not stupid.’_ The goddess said. She told him of his purpose, and of the days to come. When Ben turned eighteen, he was to go on a holy journey, and he was to do her bidding. He had no choice but to tell the elders what he was told the next day, and after that, the word spread like wildfire.

Ben Solo was marked by a death god.

*

Rey was not a fan of sleeping. She had never been. Even when she was a child. She was always the one to take watch during the night, as she could see better during the night anyways. The rest of the group was tired from a long day of trekking through the forest, and even more so after stopping to fish. They caught four traps worth of the stuff; Rey ate over half of it. She had been starving.

Now her stomach was content, and she was more alert, but not less irritable. Rey watched the night sky, hearing only the crickets and the sound of rushing water not far off. For the most part, it was like any other night. Rey stayed up, staring up at the moon and sky. Sometimes she growled quietly to see if she could scare something for fun, but that usually ended up waking someone else.

Hours passed by and Rey was not tired.

An hour after she was supposed to wake Kaydel up for her watch, the half-elf got up herself, yawning as quietly as she could. She moved over to under the tree that Rey was perched in and waved at her. Rey gently swooped down to the ground. “Have you slept at all?” Kaydel whispered to her.

Rey shook her head no.

“You should,” Kaydel smiled and gently put her hand on Rey’s shoulder, softly stroking the black feathers that met her touch. “It’s not good for you to stay up for so long.”

Rey knew that Kaydel meant well, but that wasn’t going to happen. “Yeah,” She said. She moved a little way away from her and then launched back up into a taller tree, out of view from the rest of the group. There she perched on a branch that was able to hold her weight, she was glad that the cold wasn’t biting tonight, because the branches didn’t give her any shelter from that at all.

It wasn’t until the sun started to rise that she felt off.

She wasn’t sure how to explain it, but it was like there was this burning sensation in her head that threatened to split her skull. She let a low, pained groan as the sensation got worse. She wasn’t quite sure what triggered it, but she closed her eyes and she was in a different place.

*

_Rey stood in a field filled with bodies, both from the First Order and the Rebellion. The ground was soaked red with blood, and as she took a step forward, she noticed that her feet squished a little as blood rose up from the soil and got on her feet. For some reason, her eyesight was clear here. It was never this clear during the day._

_Across the field she saw a boy, clad in white and black. “Hello?” He called out to her. She stared back from the grass, not knowing what to do. She crouched down, moving closer to get a better look at him. “Is anyone out there? I don’t know where I am,” He called out to her._

_‘He’s probably going to die, shouting like that.’ Rey thought to herself. Still, Rey found herself curious. She stared at this boy, trying to get a better look at him. And she did, get a better look._

_Oh._

_He was beautiful._

_The boy that she was staring at had some elven features, but he looked like Kaydel so that made her think that he was a half-elf, much like her friend. His hair was an inky black and shined like silk. His eyes were big and dark and sad, and she could get lost in them. But he was wearing the symbol of clerics. Rey’s breath hitched, recoiling a little from him even though she was far enough away that he couldn’t see her. “I know that there’s someone out there,” He shouted, “please I need help.”_

_Rey could not stay there._

_Her claws dug into her arm, trying to get her out of this fever dream that she was in. A burst of pain shot through her arm and a hole opened up beneath her, and she was falling._

*

Ben was used to having strange dreams. Ever since Asaji Ventress had marked him to be her cleric, he had never been able to sleep for a full eight hours. Sometimes the other gods would speak to him, each of them wanting Ben to do something different than what Asaji was telling him to do. Most of the times he ignored all of them. This time was different though. He was unsure of what the dream he had was. He remembered a field. Bodies. Things that had happened in almost all of his dreams.

But this was different.

He felt the presence of someone else there, and that presence was not a god.

This was something else. Instead of waking up tangled in his sheets, sweating and breathing heavy, he was just curious of what he had just seen. He reached to the beaded necklace in his pocket, the one that helped him connect to the gods and prayed, trying to reach out to one of the gods to ask them if they knew what it was that he had seen.

None of them answered.

Ben sighed, strangely awake as the sun was just starting to rise above the horizon. He should get going soon. There was a town not too far away and he needed to replenish his supplies. Ben started to get packed up and started moving, oddly feeling a strange pull to the new town that he was about a day away from entering.

“This is going to be interesting,” He muttered to himself.

*

When Rey woke up, she was one the ground and Poe was staring at her, asking her if she was okay. Rey took in a deep breath, winded from falling out of the tree that she had been in the night before. “Yeah,” She sighed, moving her wings gingerly. After a moment of movement, she decided that those were okay as well, and got up, shaking a little. Her vision blurred as she got adjusted to daylight and she sighed. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She said.

“You fell out of a tree,” Rose pointed out.

“Yeah, I did.”

“If I fell out of a tree, I wouldn’t be fine,”

“Well I am,” She gritted her teeth and Poe interjected between the two.

“We got you a surprise,”

“You did?”

“We did,” That’s when the smell hit Rey’s nose. She grinned as she was led to the pile of cooked venison that was waiting. “Well,” She said, “what did I do to deserve this?” She was practically drooling.

“Well, we managed to down two deer and while we kept one for us, we know you’ve been not eating to let us have more of the food for the past few days so that’s thanks for not letting us starve gift, basically,” Poe said.

Rey smiled as she sat down to eat. “You guys are too sweet,” She said. She took a moment to eat, more than she had gotten to in a while, but her stomach felt full and even though her claws were messy she was happy. Everyone else was waking up and starting to eat breakfast. It took about thirty minutes before anyone was really ready to discuss plans, but first Poe turned to Rey again and asked her why she fell out of that tree. Rey shrugged. “It was nothing.” She told them. “Just a bad dream,”

“You’ve never fallen out of a tree because of a bad dream before,”

“Not that you know of,” She shot back.

“Leave her alone,” Kaydel said, “if she doesn’t want to talk about it than she doesn’t have to.”

“Thank you,”

“We need to start planning for what we’re going to do as we reach the next town,”

“I know what I’m going to do,” Rey snorted, “fly to the other side of the town and wait for you guys to get your business done.” That was the way it had always been since she had joined this group. She always pretended like it didn’t bother her, having to wait in the woods alone. After all, before they had found her, she had already spent a lot of time doing that. She should be used to it by now. She should be used to being alone. The truth was that she was fairly sure that she would never be able to get used to that.

“We’ll try and be as fast as possible,” Kaydel said, “it’s just some of the Rebellion spies aren’t as—relaxed about creatures as we are.”

Rey knew what she meant. _‘They weren’t as relaxed about monsters as we are,’_ but she knew she didn’t like saying that. Rey just shrugged and listened to the rest of them plan out where the best place was to stay while they were in town, for the time being, talking about meetings and important political stuff, Rey mostly tuned everyone out at that time. She would be able to make it to the town a lot quicker than they would, and it was tempting to just take off right now. She didn’t though.

She waited for the rest of her group to pack up before she took off to the sky, still thinking about her dream. Wondering why she felt drawn to this cleric boy with sad eyes. Wondering if he was real. If he was, she didn’t feel to keen to meet him any time soon. Clerics and paladins alike seemed to have an interest in vanquishing anything that they deemed a monster from this Earth, and Rey wanted to stay alive for the time being.

What scared her was that she still felt it now, as she headed towards the next town that the rest of her group was supposed to stop in.

Maybe that dream was a warning of what was to come.


	2. Clandestine Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " _Rage fuels the corrupt_ ," - **Scripts of The Jedi Mages**

The town of Matamata was bigger than the small cluster of villages that Ben was used to. It was surrounded by a wooden wall and guard towers, and there were two larger guards stationed outside the entrance, observing everyone that passed through and searching through the merchant carts that passed through as well. Ben was just planning on passing through without being seen but he couldn’t help but notice a halfling woman being harassed by one of them as she tried to make her way into the city. “It’s urgent,” She said, “can this wait for another day?”

“We’ve seen you here before,” The guard that was hassling her sneered, “you gambled with my friend Gerald and took all of his coin.” The woman’s face reddened a little and yelped, and that’s when Ben stepped in, flashing a smile and his prayer beads a little more than he usually would. Matamata was a religious city. They listened to clerics.

“Hi, sorry, er—what seems to be the problem?” The guard stared at him for a second, like he was about to hurl insults at him. As he said this he tugged on one of his beads, summoning the power of a trickster god to help him for a minute. He could hear Asaji Ventress groaning in his head. He ignored it.

“Um, I’m sorry.” The guard said. “Who are you?”

“Forgive me, I’m Ben. A cleric, and this is my friend. I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay and she was able to make her way into the city safely,” Ben was usually an incredibly bad liar, but he could feel a small line of power thrum through his veins. It was something that wouldn’t be noticeable to outsider, but it was enough to help him through this conversation.

“She stole coin from my friend—”

“No, I did not.” The halfling woman was practically seething at this point and something told Ben that she was telling the truth.

“Yes, she did. We both saw her there in the tavern last year, she stole my friend’s coin and I’m piss-poor now.” Ben could feel the power still there, lingering, waiting to get this guy turned the other way around.

“I did not!” The halfling said, “I played the game fair and square, it’s not my fault that your friends is b—”

“Okay uh—”

“Rose—”

“Rose,” Ben coughed, “I think that’s enough. It’s understandable that the man would be upset for his friend, but perhaps this is a misunderstanding. Are you sure this is the halfling that took your money?”

“Well, I—” He could see the guard’s eyes start to cloud over.

“—I mean it has been a year since you last saw her. Are you absolutely positive this is the halfling that you’re talking about and not someone else?” After a minute of dazedly staring into the distance his eyes refocused on Ben and he gave him this sheepish look that Ben had seen so many times when he had used this power before.

“You know what, I think you’re right.” He said. “I’m sorry, Miss. My bad.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” Rose grumbled, “just want to walk into the city without being harassed by a dirty human.”

“Come on Rose,” Ben said, “let’s go.” The two of them started walking through the entrance and Rose looked up at him. The halfling woman smiled up at him. Ben smiled back at her.

“You’re tall,”

“And you’re not,”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” She sniffed, “thank you for getting me through the gates. He’s been hassling me for a while. It was starting to get annoying. I wanted to beat the shit out of him.” Ben was pretty sure that he had never dealt with someone who spoke so frankly. He was still working on trying not to wince when someone cursed in front of him. Of course, he didn’t have that quite down yet. He noticed Rose snickering at him for a second before glancing around. “There’s a lot of very tall people around here, it’s quite annoying.”

“Are you looking for someone?”

“A few people,” Rose sighed, “I’m not sure if they’re around here or they’re at the bar.”

“Tell me what they look like, I may be able to help you find them.” Rose told him who she was looking for. One half-elf, an elf, and a human. One has a bow, the other one a sword, and the other one just looks like he’d be irritating to talk to for long. Ben wasn’t sure how helpful of an explanation that was, but he promised that he was going to help her, so he was going to help her.

“I think that they probably went to the tavern to check in while I got held up by that stupid guard,” She mumbled. “I’m sorry that happened to you, that has to be frustrating.”

“More than you can know,” She grumbled, “anyways. What are you doing here, cleric?”

“Hm?”

“What brings you to Matamata?”

“If I’m being honest,” He sighed, “I’m not really sure what brought me here.” There was this sort of pull that he had felt, like he needed to come into the city. He hoped that as soon as he crossed the threshold, he would figure out why he felt like something was calling to him, but he did not. Instead, he felt a pull somewhere slightly beyond the city that he could not get yet. He knew that there was something that he still needed to do here, but he did not know what. The Gods were oddly silent here. It’s something that he thought that he would like. He didn’t. Usually he had some sort of direction to lead him in the right direction.

Not here.

“Just felt like I needed to be here,” He said.

“Ooh, like a religious thing?”

Ben laughed a little, “Yeah sure. I guess.”

“That’s so cool, you know I’ve never met a cleric before.”

“Well, I’m glad to make your acquaintance.” The two of them made it to the first tavern and Ben walked in with Rose, as luck would have it, as soon as the two of them walked through the door, a blond half-elf woman came running towards Rose.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so glad that you’re okay!” She exclaimed. Ben stood off to the side awkwardly as Rose caught her friend up to speed. The rest of her friends were at a table, waving them over.

“Can Ben come over?” Rose gestured to him. “He’s a friend and not annoying,” The other woman gave him a once over.

“He’s a cleric?” She had a hint of disdain in her voice, one that Ben had never heard for clerics before.

“Yeah, but he’s cool.” Rose shrugged. “He helped me get away from the guard that was giving me problems. Come on, Kaydel. We should at least buy him a drink,”

“Sure,” Kaydel shrugged, “why not?”

*

_She was in a dungeon, chained up like a prize. She could taste blood in her mouth. “No,” She coughed, “not here. Not here, anywhere but here.” She could hear him cackling in the distance, so proud of himself for causing pain. That was just like him._

_He always marveled at being the most sadistic that he possibly could be. “You’ll be perfect,” He told her._

_Rey felt like she was going to throw up. What was the point of showing her this? She needed to get out of here as fast as she could. Rey had a way of being able to get out of nightmares like this. She bit down on her cheek hard. It took a second, but she could feel blood pooling on her tongue. The pain reminding her that this wasn’t real._

_Not anymore._

_She was going to wake up._

*

Ben quickly decided that he liked the rest of this group, as weird and non-religious as they seemed. They were all the type of people to accept someone quickly as a friend and welcome them into the group. “So, Ben.” Poe began. “What are you doing here in Matamata?”

“I don’t quite know yet if I’m being honest.” He said. “I just felt like I needed to come here,”

“Interesting, so like—religious stuff?”

“Basically,” Ben laughed, “whatever the Gods want is where I go.”

“That sounds exhausting,” Jannah said.

“It is,” Ben sighed, “but it’s my purpose. I’m just glad that I can help people wherever I go.” That was somewhat true. He was pretty sure that they could tell that he wasn’t telling them everything. He didn’t want to though. He cleared his throat, “So uh, what brings you guys to Matamata?” 

“Uh, we have important business to do here.” Jannah told him. 

“Yeah,” Poe told him, “some real important shit.” 

“Let me guess,” Ben said, “something having to deal with the war?” 

“Yeah, more or less.” Poe told him. “How’d you know?” 

“I’ve heard on the road that a lot of people who pass here do business regarding the war, it’s safe. It’s guarded, why not? It makes sense.” Ben shrugged. 

“You’re not a First Order sympathizer, are you?” Rose asked quietly.

“Oh, no. I’m not. The King is awful and deserves to be overthrown,” Ben made sure that his voice was only loud enough for the rest of the group to hear and not anyone at any of the surrounding tables. “He’s not on the side of the gods either, they’re keen to have someone kill him.” 

“Then why don’t they do that themselves?” 

“Unfortunately, the gods don’t do direct contact with mortals, unless they’re clerics.” Ben said. “I know that it would be more convenient if they did, but the last time that happened, it nearly destroyed half the planet. It’s better if they stay out of our affairs,” Poe opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t. He was a skeptic alright. 

Ben was fine with that. 

He had run into many skeptics during his time as cleric. It had never bothered him, and it would continue to not bother him. “So, uh. Thanks for the drink,” Ben had said after a while of conversation. “If you no longer need me then, I’ll be going on my way.” 

“Actually.” Kaydel stopped him. “Would you be interested in staying for a little longer?” Ben raised an eyebrow and Kaydel continued explaining things to him. “The thing is that none of us have a healer on hand and clerics are usually really good at that. Right? We have some really important and kind of dangerous things that we have to do and it’s better that we have someone that would be able to save our asses if we get shot at or stabbed or something like that,” 

“Of course, we would pay you,” 

“That’s a lie,” Rose said. 

“It’s a lie,” Poe agreed, “but uh—we do some jobs around towns before we head out of them and if you would join us, of course you would get a cut of the coin. You seem like an agreeable enough man, what do you say?” 

This was the first and only time the gods piped up. 

‘ _Follow them,’_

“Okay,” Ben said, “I’ll go with you guys. Sounds like it’ll be fun.” 

He had no idea how in over his head that he was. 

*

It usually took the group three days to get to the other side of town and get back to Rey. During that time, she was always alone. She didn’t have much else to do but fly around the forest that surrounded the town and look for something to eat. But even after a while, that got boring. She had hunted some game, but unable to have someone else cook it for her, she had to eat it raw. Her stomach was able to digest it, but every other part of her recoiled in disgust at what she was doing.

The only other thing she could do was wait.

And Rey was not a fan of waiting.

When the fourth day passed and Rey sat in the darkness waiting for the rest of her group, she got a little worried. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. They always only spent three days in each town or city they passed at most, knowing that Rey didn’t like being left alone for long periods of time.

She wondered if they were okay. If they were hurt and needed help from her. Although, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to help much unless they needed her to kill something. That was really the only thing that she was good at. And going into town would be risky for her, especially when she knew that it was such a religious place. ‘ _They’re going to be fine,’_ She thought to herself, trying to quell her anxieties.

She closed her eyes, waiting.

They would come back soon.

She was sure of it.

*

_Ben always dreamed of two places. A forest or a field. It seemed to be the place that the gods liked to take him to the most, despite Ben’s protest. Asaji had a thing for bringing him to places where he felt isolated and alone, surrounded by death and destruction. She did the same thing tonight. Ben woke up in a forest with blood on his hands, a cloaked figure standing in the distance. He didn’t go towards it. He knew who she was. “You haven’t been listening to my words, Benjamin.” She said._

_Ben froze. This wasn’t going to be good. He could just tell. “I-I’ve been doing my best.”_

_“And yet you’re still not at your full potential, simply because you refuse to obey me.”_

_Ben wanted to tell her that it was hard to bend to her every whim because he didn’t enjoy death the same way that she did. He knew that if he said anything like that, his life would be on the line. “I-I’m sorry,” He told her. That was all he could say._

_He hoped that she believed it._

_“What do you need me to do?” He asked her._

_“I need you to listen to me and do what I tell you to.” She told him. “There is something coming, a storm of sorts. Something that will test your faith more than anything that you have ever experienced before,”_

*

Ben woke up sweating, his hands shaking. The room was colder than it had been when he had fallen asleep. He muttered a prayer to himself and got up, needing some fresh air. The last few days with the group had been good. Ben had helped them with one or two jobs, and he had quickly realized he wished that he had a group that he could travel with constantly. Ben had never had friends as a kid, and despite the fact that he was more socially awkward than anything, they didn’t seem to judge him for that.

Rose had told him earlier that they were planning on leaving Matamata today, and Ben had said that he was going to come with. He wasn’t sure why that made him nervous now, thinking about going with a group on a mission that he did not know everything about yet. He knew that the Rebellion was trying it’s best to keep itself free of the clutches of the First Order, so they were probably going to move in on the First Order and try to do something to sabotage its advances, but that was all that Ben could be sure about.

He didn’t know what would happen to him if he went along with them. Asaji Ventress had told him that there was a storm coming. Something told him it had something to do with the people that he just aligned himself with. “This isn’t going to be fun, is it?” He told himself as he paced around his room.

The sun was starting to come up, and Ben was grateful for that. Kaydel was the first one awake, she knocked on the door of his room and he opened it. “Hey,” She said, “so we need to get going pretty soon, but there is one more job that we need to do before we leave this place,” Ben nodded, not sure that he liked the look on her face.

“Okay? What is it?”

“There’s uh—there’s something that’s killing people, and by the looks of it, it’s arcane. But the bodies it leaves are—gross. To say the least,”

“What do the bodies look like?” Ben asked. Something told him that he was going to regret asking that because Kaydel had this look on her face that made Ben think that she was going to be sick. And then Ben told her, and he was pretty sure that he was going to be sick too.

“They’re missing all of their organs,”

“Oh my,”

“Yeah,”

“That’s disgusting.”

“It really is,”

“I’ll be down in a minute; do you guys know where it is?”

“We have an idea,” Kaydel told him, “but uh—we’re really going to need your help with this. So, yeah.”

“Trust me,” Ben said, “I’ll help. I’m good at helping wipe monsters off the mortal plane,” Kaydel’s eyes widened for a second, and she opened her mouth to say something. Ben wondered if he had said something wrong, but Kaydel shut her mouth and nodded.

“Well,” She said, “please hurry. The faster we get this thing taken care of, the better.”

“Of course,” Ben said. And then Kaydel left.

He could already tell that this was going to be a long day.

*

It turned out that Jannah was an incredibly good tracker. It took them under four hours to find out where the monster was. The problem was how they were going to attack. “Of course, it would be in a stupid fucking sewer,” Poe wrinkled his nose. “I’m not going to be able to see down there,” He said.

“We need some torches,” Rose said, “and uh, do you know how deep the sewage runs down there?”

“I don’t know,” Kaydel said, “but if you need me to, I’ll carry you in the deeper spots.”

“Good,” Rose looked like she didn’t want to go down there more than anything, but it was the only thing that they could do. It took a few minutes to get some emergency torches and head back to the sewers.

“The monster attacks at night, so we should go down there now. Perhaps we’d have the element of surprise?”

“Yes,” Ben agreed, “I think that would be best.”

“Okay then,” Jannah said, “who’s going to go first?”

Everyone was silent but eventually looked to Ben. Something told him that was going to happen. “Sure, just throw the new guy down there first.”

“Think of it as initiation,” Poe clapped his back and Ben grimaced, lifting the manhole cover and glad to see a ladder there. He was immediately hit by the smell. It was worse than sewage. His hands immediately went to his prayer beads as his feet hit the ground.

“How bad is it down there?”

“Uh, not too bad.” Ben said. “Other than the smell.”

“Great,” Poe said, “welp, let’s get this over with.” Everyone else started coming down the ladder and into the sewer as well. Kaydel grimaced and Rose nearly gagged.

“Could you imagine if Rey was down here?” Jannah whispered to Kaydel, “She hates being underground.”

“I know,” He wanted to ask who Rey was. Was that another friend of theirs that he had not met yet? Probably. He decided now wasn’t the right time to ask. The group began to head down the sewer tunnel, getting closer to where Jannah said the monster was. They were all as quiet as possible, but Ben could tell that Rose and the others were uneasy. Jannah had her bow poised and ready to go, Poe was holding a torch with one hand and a dagger with another, Ben called up the gods and asked for a small line of power.

As he did so, a big bright orb appeared in front of him, lighting up part of the tunnel. “Just a little dimmer.” He muttered. The light got dim enough for them to still have the element of surprise but still see.

“That’s useful,” Poe said.

“Yes but keep the torch.” Jannah told him. “We don’t know if this monster is hurt by fire.”

“Good idea,”

Rose moved over to Ben and placed a dagger in his hands. At first it looked like any normal dagger, but he could feel some magic thrumming through it. “Just for good luck,” Rose said.

Ben smiled.

“Thanks,”

Rose smiled, despite the fact that they were probably about to walk into the jaws of death. Ben gripped the dagger in his hand and took a deep breath out as they turned the corner, and that was right when it attacked.

*

It was nearing the end of the fifth day when Rey decided that if they weren’t going to be back in the morning, then she would go looking for them. Damn the consequences. She scanned the perimeter of the town, watching as people started to light streetlamps as it began to get dark. Her vision started to become clearer and she waited. “Come on,” She muttered to herself, “you guys have been in the town long enough.” They better have gotten her something to eat along the way or gotten robbed or something that would justify why they had been in Matamata for such a long time.

She wondered if they had been thrown in jail.

Or if the First Order had found them and killed them.

“No,” She said, “they’re all smart. There’s no way that the First Order caught them.”

Rey tried to convince herself that there was nothing wrong. That was hard to do when the group should’ve been back two days ago, and they didn’t send her any word telling her where they were. The crickets and cicadas started to chirp, and the evening air grew cooler, Rey stayed in the dark, pacing, waiting for them.

She hated the feeling of not knowing what was going on, even though she had been through this so many times. It was nearly midnight when she saw them running from town, Rose and Kaydel commandeering a cart, and Poe and Jannah as well as someone else that she hadn’t seen before running behind them, trying to get on. And behind them, there was a big lizard creature, just a little bit smaller than her, but taller than everyone else in the group.

It was chasing them.

Rey sighed, “Dumbasses.” She got poised, ready to fly down and grab the thing. She decided to have a little more fun than that though. She let out the most terrifying screech that she could muster, seeing birds flying out of their trees and trying to get to safety. The lizard creature came to a halt, and that’s when Rey took off, her claws sharp and poised. One of the claws pierced straight through his eye, the other one his neck. She lifted him up a good forty feet, before dropping him and sending his lifeless body falling to the ground.

Rey carefully moved back to the ground as Kaydel came up to hug her, but that didn’t happen. “Woah.” The new man said. “What the f—”

“It’s okay, she’s with us.”

“What do you mean she’s wi—”

“I mean that she’s with us, and she’s cool. Seriously, calm down.”

Rey turned to see who exactly was with them.

It was him.

The boy from her dreams.


	3. Of a Foreigner's God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " _And monsters walked the Earth, carrying evil inside of them, the Jedi mages and clerics were the ones who destroyed them, bringing light to the world..._ " - **Books of Revan**

“You brought a cleric back here,” She didn’t know if she showed enough disdain in her voice as she glared at him. This boy from her dreams that she had thought was going to kill her was now standing right in front of her, looking at her like she was a monster. And he was right. She was a monster. She just didn’t need a reminder.

“She’s a monster. You’re friends with a monster.”

“Ben—” Rose started.

“Rey—” Kaydel sighed.

“What’s the matter, Benji? Afraid that I’m going to eat you?” Rey cocked her head to the side, flashing her sharp teeth as the boy stared at her. He was holding a set of prayer beads in his fist like it was some sort of lifeline. Rey knew that if he got close enough with those, he could summon some divine power that would definitely be able to kill her.

She wasn’t scared.

He was trembling.

“Rey, that’s mean. Come on, he helped us.”

“But apparently not enough for you guys to kill that monster that was chasing you,” Rey pointed out.

“Yeah, but I would’ve died if he hadn’t healed me.” Poe told her. “He could be really useful, and he wants to help us,”

“He wants to help you guys,” Rey shot back, “not me.” The rest of the group exchanged glances with each other awkwardly as Rey glared intensely at the cleric. He looked like he was about to throw up, which Rey found interesting, considering that he was the only thing that could kill her. She could feel power radiating off of him. She should be the one that felt like she was going to throw up.

She didn’t.

Instead she just felt annoyed, “You should’ve asked me before you brought him back here.” Rey hissed.

“You’re right,” Poe said, “we should have. We’re sorry. But we do need a healer for this journey and Ben is really good at his job.” Rey rolled her eyes as he went over to talk to Ben in hushed tones. The cleric was grimacing, every once and a while chancing a glance at her. Rey hated the way she could feel his eyes on her.

She knew that she was a monster.

A beast with big black matted wings and clawed hands and feet, many beady black eyes, and large, sharp teeth. She had seen her reflection before. She was ugly, to say the least. She didn’t need to be reminded by some boy with perfect hair and perfect genes that she was an oddity. Kaydel interrupted her train of thought when she came over to her and said, “We’re really sorry for not telling you. And taking too long to come back,”

“It’s fine,”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,”

“If Ben agrees to come with us, will you be okay with that?”

‘ _No,’_ Rey thought to herself, ‘ _why would I be okay with that?’_ It was what she wanted to say. But she didn’t end up saying it.

“Yes,” Rey lied through her teeth. “I’ll be fine.” Rey watched as Ben nodded and Poe came back over to talk to her. She knew what he was going to tell her. Ben had decided to join them, but it was her choice if she was comfortable letting him stay or not. Every part of her being wanted to tell Poe to get him to go away, he made her uncomfortable and Rey was pretty sure if she slept too close to him, he would take the chance to try and kill her. But she also knew that they desperately needed a healer.

“So,” Poe said, “Ben promised that he’d be cool about everything moving forward. He still wants to help us on our mission. Are you okay with him staying?”

“Yes,” Rey lied, “now are you guys going to get rid of that carcass over there and go get your money? We’re going to need it on the journey ahead.”

“She’s right,” Jannah said. “Rose and I can go to town and bring it in to collect the coin, we’ll catch up with you guys. Go set up camp.”

“Okay, we’ll be two miles north.”

“Yeah,” Rose said, “we’ll meet you there.” They turned to take care of the dead monster. Rey didn’t bother making eye contact with the cleric as she turned around.

“I’ll meet up with you later,” She launched herself into the air again. Not caring that Kaydel had called after her before she left.

*

Ben was quiet for a while as they trekked up the camping point where they set things up for the night. He wasn’t sure what he should say. Should he ask why they thought that keeping a monster as a friend was a good idea? Usually, Ben wouldn’t be so judgmental of others. But he could practically smell dark magic coming off of her in droves and it was making his stomach recoil. ‘ _Kill her,’_ Asaji Ventress was in his head almost immediately as the two of them saw each other for the first time. It took everything in him to not listen to her this time. There were too many people around and that made her harder to kill. And something told Ben that even if he were to take her on alone, she was a lot more powerful than she let on.

They made their way to the camping point, but Rey was nowhere to be seen. Which gave him a little bit of reprieve as he thought of what to say next, “So, when did you guys uh—meet Rey?”

“I met her first,” Kaydel said, “I was running away from some pretty bad people. They were going to force me into the First Order’s army, and I was a few miles away from crossing the border into our territory, and I was really badly injured. There was no way I would’ve made it away from the First Order without Rey’s help, she tore all of those men to shreds. It was a little terrifying but in a good way, and then she found an apothecary, and they took me in and healed me. We’ve been friends ever since.”

_‘Maybe she’s not that bad,’_ He thought to himself, _‘maybe I was being unfair to her.’_

‘ _You’re being weak is what you’re being,’_ It wasn’t just Asaji talking to him this time, it was multiple gods. Ben felt like his head was going to split open for a second before their voices subsided.

“She really is a good person,” Poe said, “she’s just not used to people. Do give her a chance though, please? I know that you’re a cleric and she was born of black magic, and that goes against everything that you believe in, but she’s our friend and she’s going to stay, okay?”

“Okay,” Ben said, “I just—I’ll adjust.” He desperately wanted to change the subject to something else. 

Luckily, they started talking about their plans as they would cross the next patch of woods. They were nearing two different forests that were both famous for making people go missing. Even the most experienced travelers didn’t want to go in either of those forests. Ben had travelled a long way, but he had stayed away from forests for the most part. Mainly because the gods liked to give him night terrors and they most always involved forests.

Something told him that going this way would cause trouble, “Are you sure that we should go through the forests?” He asked Poe.

“It’s the quickest way to get across the border unseen,”

“It takes a month and a half to get through those forests on foot, and they’re famous for not being kind to travelers.”

Kaydel grimaced, “Yeah we know,” She said, “we don’t have a choice. For what we want to do. We need to make sure that we’re not coming in from the Rebellion side, because if we do, that’s suspicious and it would be a lot easier to blow our cover.” Ben knew that she was right. He knew that even if it was dangerous, the forests would be the best cover, but he couldn’t help but have a bad feeling about this.

“Okay,” He said, “and what’s so important that you guys need to be undercover like that?”

Before stopping himself, Poe said, “Oh, we’re going to kill the King.”

*

Rey took shelter in a tree close by the group, watching them talk. She could hear every word they were saying, and every second she was getting more and more annoyed. ‘ _Perhaps you should find a tree further away from the group.’_ She thought to herself. But she refrained from leaving just yet. She was waiting for Jannah and Rose to join back up with the rest of them before she took off. She wasn’t going far, and she would always be able to track them to their next location. She just needed to be far away from them right now, because being anywhere near the cleric was going to set her off.

Once Jannah and Rose joined the group again, Rey flew out of her tree and a few miles away to a new one, nestling herself on a branch and closing her eyes. She didn’t sleep, but she did rest until she felt warmth start to hit her cheeks. From there she opened her eyes and flew back to camp, swooping down next to Rose who was on watch. “Where were you?” She asked.

“Sleeping,” Rey lied, “why?”

“No reason,” She shrugged, “we were just worried about you. That’s all.”

“I’m fine,”

“Good,” Rey sat down across from her, sighing.

“So, are you really sure that you’re okay with Ben coming with us?”

Rey was pretty sure that Rose knew what the actual answer to this question was, but once again, she didn’t want to be the one person that made everyone lose out on a healer. And the fact was that she had it pretty good, she liked everyone there except Ben, and she should be able to deal with that, she was an adult after all. “Yeah,” She said, “yeah. I’m fine.”

“You’re full of shit,” Rose chuckled a little. Rey didn’t say anything. She was right. “But uh, thank you, for still letting him come along. He is a nice person, he helped us a lot.”

“Sure.” Rey sighed. She didn’t want to debate on whether Ben was nice or not. She didn’t want to talk about Ben at all, if she was being honest. But she couldn’t always have everything that she wanted. “You should get some rest,” She told Rose, “I’ll finish the watch.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah I’m sure,”

“Okay, thanks Rey.”

“No problem.”

*

“You’re going to kill the King?” Ben nearly choked on air when he heard that. “Are you sure that you can do that by yourselves? Don’t you need an army or something?”

“We were hired to do this by the Rebellion, all of us have a special kind of work that we’re good at doing. It’s a stealth mission,”

“Then, why, may I ask, is Rey here? She doesn’t look exactly like the stealthy type?”

“She can fly, that’s useful. She usually stays back and scouts out the place, but she’s strong too, and when the time comes for stealth to no longer be involved, we’re going to need her.” Ben supposed that Poe was right, he didn’t exactly know anything about strategy. He wasn’t the type of person to plan battles. Or plan a person’s death. He just liked to help people.

“Okay,” He said.

“Do you still want to do this?” Something told Ben that he had to do this. The King of the First Order was responsible for so many deaths, and not just the deaths of Rebellion members. Someone had to hold him accountable.

“Yes,” Ben said. “I do.”

They had talked a little more and then waited for Rose and Jannah. When they got back, they assigned watch and Ben went to sleep, not sure what the next few days would bring.

*

_Ben was in a prison this time, it looked much like the horror stories that people had told him of the First Order prisons. There was dried blood everywhere, and it smelled like death. Ben could hear a small girl crying, and he ran towards that. It only took a second to find where she was kept, there was an older man standing over her in a crown._

_The King._

_She was a shivering, pale thing. “Please, don’t hurt me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I won’t misbehave again,”_

_“Oh, my dear. You think this is because of what you did? This is so much more than that, you’re going to be useful to me.” Ben heard the girl cry and tried to move forward to help her, but he could not. The scene melted away and he was somewhere else._

_Somewhere colder._

_Somewhere darker._

_He turned around._

_What was this?_

_There was something watching him in the shadows, he could feel it. “Who’s out there?” He yelled. “I know that there’s someone there.”_

_Trees sprouted from the Earth, snow fell, and a creature plunged out from the darkness. It was her. He hit the ground and she pinned him. He didn’t struggle. She was snarling, all of her beady black eyes staring at him. Her claws already had blood on them. This was it._

_This was where Ben died._

_He did not say anything, just waited for her to plunge her claws into his chest and dig out his heart._

_The dream faded before she did._

*

Ben wasn’t sure how to feel about Rey. He knew how the Gods felt about her. She was an abomination. He could practically smell dark magic on her, and that made her untrustworthy. But the rest of the group wanted her there, and that meant that she was useful. Other people liked her. What he couldn’t figure out was why. The next few days, the two of them tried to stay as far away from each other as they possibly could, but that didn’t always work.

Sometimes, Rey would have to join them on the ground as they started to pass by a place that would be easy to ambush them, and of course, she and Ben always managed to get into it. The first time that they fought, Ben was staring at her. He knew that it was rude, but he couldn’t help himself.

She took up a lot of space.

“You know, if you have a problem with me, you should just come out and say it, little cleric.” Her voice was gravelly and dark. She sounded hungry.

“I think you already know what my problem with you is,”

“Can—”

“—Relax,” Rey shot back at Poe before he could finish his sentence. Then she turned to Ben, “Yes, I do. Your faint little heart is offended by the very sight of me. I’m so sorry that you’re so delicate you can’t deal with hanging around a monster,” After that she had launched off into the sky while they were still in the middle of a valley.

Jannah rolled her eyes. “Is she going to come back down here?”

“Give her some time,” Kaydel said, “she’s not good with people.”

_‘That’s an understatement,’_ Ben thought to himself.

The next time that they fought, it had been twelve hours since they had stopped, everyone was tired and Rey had just appeared, munching on some raw and bloody meat. “Can you do that somewhere else?” In response to that, she tore into its bloody flesh and let the juices and blood dribble down her chin. Ben gagged, and Rey grinned. Her sharp and bloody teeth on full display.

“Rey, you don’t eat like that. Come on.” Kaydel said.

“You all are no fun,” She munched down on whatever animal she killed a little more, “I just like enjoying my food.”

“Could you do it somewhere else that isn’t around me?”

“What? Why? Are you squeamish or something?”

“I’m not sque—” She took the last bite of the mangled meat that she had between her claws and smiled.

“What was that you were saying?”

“Never mind,”

“That’s what I thought.”

It was just general bickering that Ben knew that he would have to deal with. Rey never stayed on the ground for long, and when the two of them weren’t fighting, he was getting along with the rest of the group. They all told him that Rey was really nice and that he just needed to give her a chance, but how could he give her a chance when she spent every single opportunity that they were near each other to make him uncomfortable?

Every single time he looked at her, she confirmed that she was a monster. He had been raised to want to vanquish them from this Earth. It was a mercy to even have her be living at the moment. He was sure that she knew that too.


	4. Cutting Down A Different Path

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"And the two who walked different paths met at a crossroads, an understanding began to form."_ **-The Books of Revan**

One thing that Rey hated more than anything was being out in the open like they were right now. The bright light shining down on them made her feel hotter than she usually was. She felt like she was going to die, and what was worse was that when the sun was out, her vision fractured, and she could barely see. This meant when she wasn’t flying and relying on her hearing, she tripped a lot.

The rest of the group had figured out not to mention it to her, it was embarrassing, and she hated it. Of course, the rest of the group wasn’t Ben. That was one of the reasons that she had stayed off the ground most of the time.

He snickered after she stumbled over a particularly big branch. “What?”

“Nothing,” Ben shrugged, “it’s just—you’re a big scary monster that just got defeated by a branch.” Rey was really trying her hardest to be patient today, it wasn’t working. “It’s kind of funny,”

“And you’re a squishy human I could tear apart in two seconds, what’s your point?”

“Okay, I think the two of you need to cool it.” Kaydel got between the two of them. “Listen, Rey’s hot and tired and has like a billion pounds of feathers weighing her down. So maybe don’t be rude to her.”

“Rey,” She turned to her, “maybe don’t threaten to eat people?”

“Why?”

“Rey,” She sighed, “you know why.”

“Do I?”

“Rey,” She knew that Kaydel was just trying to diffuse the conflict between the two of them. She appreciated the fact that she was trying to do that.

“I’m going to go look for a lake, it’s hot and I don’t want to deal with this right now.”

With that, she flew away from the rest of the group.

*

Ben was able to calm down after Rey left. He found that was a reoccurring thing that happened with this group. Everything was fine when she wasn’t around, riling him up. He never had someone get under his skin so much before. He wished that he could just control his temper around her, but that never seemed to work. And then they expected him to be nice around her, when all she did was seek his anger out.

_‘The reason she gets under your skin is because she’s an abomination, and I keep telling you that you need to kill her. If you leave her alive for too long, she will betray you and it will lead to your downfall. I know that you pride yourself on being an obstinate cleric who doesn’t listen to reason, but just for once believe that I am here to help you in this matter, you’d be helping those people that you call friends over there too.’_

Ben shook his head as Rose fell behind to walk with him. He smiled down at her and she smiled up at him. “Are you doing okay?” She asked him.

“Yeah,” He said, “are you?”

“Yes,” She said, “we’re making surprisingly good time right now.”

“That’s good,”

“Is there some way I can help you and Rey stop fighting?”

“No,” Ben said.

“She’s usually not this…combative.” Rose said. “But a lot of things have happened in her life and she hasn’t been around people as long as we have. Kaydel and her met two years ago, and then she joined up with the rest of the group last year. It takes a while for her to adjust, and uh—when people treat her like an outcast, she gets super defensive, but I swear that she’s not usually like that.” Ben felt a little bad for the way that he acted towards her.

“Yeah, I guess it’d be hard to interact with people like that.” Ben said.

“Yeah, so uh—don’t judge her too harshly please.”

“I get what you’re saying,” He told her, “and I really am trying. You just have to understand that the way I was raised, the way I was trained to be a cleric, it meant that I wasn’t supposed to coexist with—people like her.”

Rose nodded, looking him up and down. “You guys aren’t going to stop fighting, are you?”

“I don’t know,” Ben admitted, “I really don’t.”

That was the truth. He had no idea how any of this was going to go. He was just following the will of what the Gods told him to do (for the most part) and hoping that would get him to the right place. He was never in the position to ask questions like that.

Before Rose could respond to that, Jannah nocked an arrow on her bow. Ben didn’t hear anything at first, but after a second, the sound of galloping horses from far off in the distance filled his ears. They were closing in, fast. Ben grabbed Rose and moved her out of the way right as a barbarian came barreling past them, sweeping his sword through the air wildly, trying to quench their thirst for blood. 

“Fuck!” There were four more bandits surrounding them.

Great.

Something told Ben that they had waited for Rey to leave before they had left. He felt stupid, looking back on it. Now they were surrounded. The bandit that spoke looked like he must be the leader. He was a taller tiefling, with tight blue skin and a scar that ran across his chin and stopped at the base of his lip. He snarled at them and said, “Where are you guys going?”

“We’re headed to the forests,” Jannah responded, “why?”

The tiefling laughed, the other bandits chuckled a little. “Because you’re in our domain, and that means that you have to pay a little fee.”

“And what would that fee be?” Poe asked.

“Everything you have,” The tiefling shrugged, “it’s that simple.”

“And what’s the other option?” Poe asked. Ben was starting to tug at his prayer beads, knowing that things were about to get ugly. Rose readied herself with some sort of glass bottle in her hands.

“We kill all of you and take everything,” The tiefling shrugged. “So it’s your choice. You could be smart about it, or we could f—” Before he could finish, Jannah shot one of the bandits off of their horse.

Poe’s eyes widened, “What?” Jannah shrugged.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

*

Rey found a lake after about three hours of flying. It was surrounded by trees and she hadn’t seen or heard anyone for miles, so that is where she drifted down. She drank some and then started to sprinkle water over herself. She was still somewhat hot, but the lake was cold, and she needed something to help her. Even if it was just a little bit.

Rey stayed there for who knew how long before she decided that she would fly back and find her friends. She shook her feathers dry, wishing that she didn’t have to take off again. It was peaceful here. And Rey didn’t feel like her head was going to explode from a pounding headache. She also didn’t feel like she wasn’t safe because the cleric wasn’t there to make things more difficult for her.

But she knew that her friends needed her to complete this journey, so she flew back. It wasn’t long before she picked up their scent again, and landed right next to Ben and the camp site they were in. He nearly jumped out of his skin. The sun was starting to go down and Rey’s eyesight adjusted just enough for her to be able to see.

“You guys look terrible,” She said, “what happened?”

“Someone tried to rob us,” Kaydel said.

“And?”

“They’re dead!” Rose exclaimed, “also one of them had explosives and some spellbooks. I can’t wait to tinker with them.”

“Where’s Poe and Jannah?”

“They’re hunting,”

Rey turned to Ben, who looked pretty banged up. For a second, she thought about being nicer to him. For one second. “What?” He sneered.

“You’re still here,” Rey sighed, “Great.”

“Can you two get along for once?”

“How do you expect a creature of dark magic and a holy lightweight to get along with each other?”

“I am not a lightweight,”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I hurt your precious little human feelings?”

“No, you’re just annoying me. I’ve had a long day, and frankly where were you when we almost got robbed?”

“I was flying and then taking a bath because you obviously didn’t want me there. I don’t have supersonic hearing, so I didn’t come to your aide. But that’s not on me, I left because you were being rude, so that’s on you.”

“Oh my god, you two need to shut the fuck up!” Rose shouted.

“I’ll shut the fuck up when he shuts the fuck up!” Rey couldn’t take it anymore. She really wanted to rip someone’s eyes out, and Ben was the closest person to her. She boiling with frustration and annoyance and she just couldn’t cope with it at this point.

“You’re the one who started this!”

Kaydel was the one that got in between the two of them. “Rey, calm down.”

Rey let out a growl and turned around. “I don’t know if I can survive the trip to kill the king with him here.”

“Oh trust me, you’re not easy to travel with either.” Ben retorted.

“I was here before you, dumbass. I don’t care about your opinion.”

“Then why do you get annoyed every time I say something?”

“Okay, you’re really not helping your cause. You’re acting like an ass, and frankly, if I could I would give you a time out.”

“You’re taking her side?”

“I’m not taking anyone’s side,” She sighed, “I just want some peace and quiet.” Both of them simmered down after that. And Rose and Kaydel turned their attention to something else. Rey sighed, getting ready to find purchase to some tree nearby.

Something stopped her. “Wait,” Ben said, “Maybe we should try to stop doing whatever this is before it gets out of hand.”

Rey knew that if she told him that she didn’t give a shit about stopping whatever was going on between them she would look like the bad guy.

So she didn’t say that. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, I think that maybe we should…make amends. We don’t have to like each other, but we don’t have to constantly drive each other insane either,”

“You know that in order for that to happen, you would have to stop staring at me like I’m an abomination,” Rey said. She didn’t let him see just how awful his actions made her feel. He didn’t deserve vulnerability.

“You provoke it,”

“Really? Are we going with that argument?”

There was a long pause of silence, and then Ben said, “I’m sorry. You’re right.” Rey wasn’t sure what to do with that. She had thought he was going to just wave her off in frustration like he usually did. But he didn’t. For some reason, Rey wasn’t sure if he was being sincere or not.

“Okay,” She said. “I’m not going to apologize for anything.”

“That’s fine,” Ben said.

“Good,”  


“Fine,” Rey stalked away from him.

‘ _What the hell was that?’_ She thought to herself.

*

Things got weird between Ben and Rey after that. After they almost got robbed, Poe suggested that they rested for a day or two before they moved. Rey didn’t actively try to antagonize Ben and Ben didn’t actively try to antagonize Ben and Ben didn’t stare at her. Things were oddly quiet. Rey stayed away from them during dinner though, and Ben did something he didn’t think he had in him.

Rey was off by herself, staring out at the night sky. Ben said, “She should join us.” When there was a lull in the conversation. Everyone raised an eyebrow at him. “What? She should.”

Kaydel was the first one to smile and said, “Rey. Come over here,”

Rey turned her head towards them. It was clear that she was confused as well. “I don’t want to bother anyone,” She said.

“It’s not fair of you to be excluded from the conversation,” Ben said.

“What are you playing at?”

“Nothing,” He shrugged, “but you were here before me and you shouldn’t feel like you can’t talk to your friends because I’m around.” Rey paused for a second, it was clear that she had no idea what Ben was doing, but eventually, when Rose shifted and made room for her to sit down, Rey sat down awkwardly. The conversation continued, Ben continued to eat, and everything was peaceful.

Rey and Ben didn’t talk anymore for the rest of the night.

He wondered how long it would last, the truce that was between them. He had Gods telling him that being nice to her was a bad idea, that in the long run she would only hurt Ben. But he wanted to give Rey the benefit of the doubt. He wanted to prove that he was at least better than a monster because he had no doubt that if he had not tried to make a truce, she would have never made the effort. He knew for sure that if the rest of the group was not here, the two of them would’ve killed each other already.

After they packed up everything and got ready to sleep, Rey took the first shift for watch.

Ben took the second, but he couldn’t sleep all the same. He ended up sitting across from Rey, who didn’t even bother to look at him when he sat down. “What are you doing?”

“Just sitting down,”

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“I can’t,”

“I don’t care,”

Ben sighed. He could hear the anger in her voice. “Is there anything I can do to get you to trust me?”

“You’re a cleric and your first action when you saw me was to freak out, I think you’d have to do a lot.” Rey answered truthfully.

“That’s fair,”

“It is,”

“I—” Ben was trying. He was really trying not to fight with her. He hated fighting with everyone. “Why don’t you trust clerics?”

That’s when Rey looked at him for the first time. All of her beady black eyes narrowing in on him. Her nostrils flared and she scoffed, “I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”

“I’m being serious,” Ben told her.

“Clerics kill everything they think isn’t holy, and despite my appearance and demeanor I actually like living, so all of my self-preservation instincts are telling me to stay as far away from you as possible.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Rey. We’re on the same side,” The look in her eyes became unreadable before she started gazing up at the night sky again.

“Are we?” Her voice sounded distant. “Are we really?” Something cold ran through Ben’s body. He wasn’t sure what. But he wondered why she asked that.

‘ _There is something that she is not telling you,’_ Asaji said.

‘ _Care to tell me what it is?’_

_‘Why should that matter? You should kill her if you want what’s best for you.’_

“We both want to kill the King,” Ben said, “that means we’re on the same side. I’m not going to kill you.”

_‘It’s clear that you do not want what’s best for yourself, though.’_

“You say that now, but what about when your Gods decide I am no longer useful.”

“I hate killing people, I won’t do it.”

Rey glanced at him. “Interesting,” There was a moment of silence before she asked a question that Ben hoped she wasn’t going to ask, “And who is your patron god?”


	5. Bloody, Hungry, Pride-Filled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"And so those who defy the gods walk a thin line between life and damnation,"_ - **The Jedi Decrees**

“Who is my patron god?” Ben asked. He swallowed hard, and Rey could tell that this was a touchy subject. “That’s not something that I really want to get into.” Rey didn’t press that subject. Mostly because she didn’t care to get to know him anymore than she had to. She wanted to keep the cleric at arms-length as long as she possibly could. So instead she shrugged.

“A cleric who’s not proud of their patron god. Interesting. Never heard of that before,”

“Yeah well not all clerics are the same,”

“Not all monsters are the same either,” Rey laughed. She chanced a glance at him and watched him smile. Her heart did this thing that made her feel sick.

‘ _Don’t get close to him,_ ’ She reminded herself, ‘ _he’s dangerous.’_

They stayed there in silence until it was time for Ben to take his shift. Rey moved up to a tree and told him goodnight.

She needed to be alone for a little while.

*

Other people noticed this shift between Rey and Ben as they started to get back on the road. The two of them were relatively quiet, walking side by side. Ben didn’t look at her. Rey didn’t look at him. “Wow,” Jannah said, “it’s oddly peaceful right now.”

“Yeah,” Rose said, “didn’t expect that.”

Ben rolled his eyes and Rey’s feathers bristled. Neither of them spoke to each other, they just walked through the woods. Rey kept tripping over things as they walked. Ben didn’t say anything at first, but after a while he said something. “Are you okay?”

“What?”

“You keep tripping over things,”

“What? Am I annoying you?”

“No,” Ben said, trying to keep his voice level. “I was just wondering if you needed help or something. Because you trip over things that are relatively easy to see.”

“She doesn’t have the best eyesight during the day,” Poe said.

“Poe,” She hissed.

“What? It’s the truth.” Poe said. “She sees a lot better at night, like, freaky good at night. But her eyesight during the day isn’t the best.” That’s when Ben started to feel bad for laughing at her for tripping a few days back. He didn’t say anything about that though.

Rey let a low, guttural sound emit out of her throat. “I didn’t know that,”

“Well now you do,” Rey said, “so you don’t have to say anything else about it.”

“I—”

“You know what? Fuck this,” Rey flew into the air and Ben kept walking.

“What did I do?”

“That’s just a touchy subject for her, don’t worry about it. You didn’t do anything this time.” Kaydel said. “But next time don’t mention it, she hates it when people mention that.”

“Got it.” He sighed. “Sorry.”

This time he actually felt a little bad. That night, Rey still didn’t join back up with them.

*

_Ben was having more dreams than he had ever had before. It always took a second for him to realize that he was actually dreaming before things got worse. They always got worse. Ben was used to forests, but now he was on the shore of a lake, and the sky was crimson red. He was met with the image of a woman cloaked in grey standing right next to him._

_This was a goddess, but it wasn’t Asaji. This was someone else._

_Bastila Shan._

_“Yes, that is correct.” The goddess said. “Pleased to see that you know your deities,”_

_“Of course, I know my deities, I am a cleric after all.”_

_“Really, boy?” Ben flinched when she asked that. “Then why don’t you act like it?”_

_“I-I devote everything to the gods.”_

_“I think both you and I know that you don’t. And that’s fine honestly, I am not as strict as my other brothers and sisters.” That made Ben feel a little bit better. Not much though. He wanted to ask what the purpose of this meeting was, but he knew that they’d get there eventually. The gods were not ones that wanted to be rushed._

_The consequences of trying to do that were almost always fatal._

_“I know that you pray to the gods every night, and that you truly do believe in divinity, but for other that’s not enough to prove your loyalty. There has been multiple times that you have defied orders to kill the monster that your travelling companion calls a friend.”_

_“She’s not—that bad.” Ben said. “She’s never actually physically harmed me, I don’t see how she could be a threat.” Ben had never been one to want to kill someone. He hadn’t even claimed the full power of his patron god, like so many clerics before him had. He knew that Asaji was waiting, wanting him to do that_ _so he would finally be the hand of justice that she wanted him to be._

_But something was keeping him held back. He didn’t want to._

_“Just because she had not hurt you yet, doesn’t mean that she won’t hurt you in the future. Trust me, boy, she is a dark omen on you. She will be the reason that you fall from grace if you do not do something about her. If you let darkness in just a bit, it will take hold of you and corrupt you. Absolutely.”_

_“Okay but just because she’s different doesn’t mean that she’s—”_

_“I am not one to argue, I am telling you the message that the other gods wanted me to deliver to you.”_

_“Well then what’s your opinion on the matter?”_

_“My opinion? I believe that everything can be purified and fixed, but I also believe that you should not try and save someone at the detriment to your own body, so the choice is up to you. I am the goddess of choice after all, but that was the message that was to be delivered.”_

_“Thank you, Bastila.” Ben said. “I needed that,”_

*

Rey swooped down next to Kaydel on the path they were walking two days later. She didn’t say anything when she was asked if she was okay, or where she had been. She was in a bad mood, and it was the type of mood that made her just shut down. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t speak. She just wanted to get this over with. “You don’t look like you got a lot of sleep,” Kaydel said. That finally got through to Rey and she was able to concentrate enough to reply.

“I didn’t,”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,”

“What happened?”

“I had a nightmare.”

“About what?”

She got asked this question a lot, as she had nightmares quite often. But she had never really been truthful to people about what it was that would bring these nightmares on so much. She knew that if people know, they would look at her differently, and she couldn’t risk that when these people were the only friends that she had.

“Um, I was drowning, and I was trying to get someone to help me and no one would.” Rey made eye contact with Ben when she said that. He gave her this look that made her almost certain that he knew that she was lying. She was grateful that he didn’t say anything though.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I hate nightmares like those,”

“Yeah,” Rey sighed, “me too.” She went quiet after that, not sure what in her was making her feel so off right now. She wanted to blame it on the fact that she had been spending so much time around the cleric and all of his holy energy was somehow starting to make her sick, but in reality, she knew that it wasn’t his fault. At least, it wasn’t just his fault.

She had a lot on her mind.

They had been walking for a few hours before Ben decided to fall back in line next to her. It was another hour before he said something to her, “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“For um, making fun of you about the tripping and stuff. It was childish and I should be better than that,”

“Okay,”

They were silent again.

Then Rey asked, “Why are you being nice all of the sudden?”

“Trying to be better,” Ben said.

“Are you sure that your gods would like that? Or consider it you being better?” He went white for a second and Rey sighed, “You’re not the first cleric I’ve met before, I know that you hate monsters. The whole motto of clerics is to _wipe darkness_ off the face of this Earth, and they are not kind about it because the gods are not kind about it. So why are you trying to lie to yourself? Why try and make peace when we both know that you’re going to turn on me the second that you decide that I am no longer good enough to be considered an exception to the rule,”

“I—”

“Or would you rather us pretend to be friends and then tear out each other’s throats later?”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” He gritted his teeth together.

“I don’t care,” She ruffled her feathers. She could hear his heartbeat. She could hear everyone’s heartbeat. They were silent as the two talked to each other, but they were listening in to this conversation. “Who is your patron god?”

“I don’t know how this has to do with the conversation we’re having right now,”

“Who is it?”

“It doesn’t matter,”

That confirmed Rey’s suspicions, that getting close to this boy would be dangerous.

If it was any god, he would just come out and say it. Even if it was a lesser god that most would be ashamed to have as their patron god, he would just tell her and she could stop being paranoid that he would kill her in her sleep. But he wasn’t saying anything, and that only meant one thing.

He knew that if he said something, he would never be able to gain her trust.

Even a lie would be better than nothing to her. Rey lied all the time, it made her feel safer. But he said nothing. He was so scared of forsaking his god like that that it meant that he was holding back a power that was dangerous.

Poe turned around then, “Just tell us your patron god.”

“The whole pantheon speaks to me,” Ben said after a minute. That was not what she asked him to tell her, but this was still interesting. Rey took a step to the side. The rest of the group stopped in their tracks and turned around too.

“What?”

“The whole pantheon speaks to me,” Ben repeated.

“Wait,” Jannah said, “isn’t that supposed to be not possible?”

“Yeah,” Rose said, “I’ve known a lot of clerics in my time, and they only have one big god at the most that talk to them, maybe two or three lesser gods.”

“It’s been like that for most of my life,” Ben told them, “the whole pantheon talks to me. I pray to every god and they guide me on my way, and although the information can be conflicting sometimes, I do my best to serve a purpose for good in this life. And I can be flawed, because I’m a person, I will not pretend to say that I am above making mistakes. I am not—other clerics.” He was grinding his teeth still, and his heartbeat was elevated. Rey wanted to tell him that he could still lie if he was lying by omission. But she didn’t. She just listened.

“So you don’t have a patron?”

“No,”

That was a bold-faced lie.

Interesting.

“Okay then, I guess that settles it. You can calm down a little Rey,”

“Yeah,” She said. She felt uneasy. “I guess that does settle it,”

The rest of the journey to the next camping spot went by smoothly. Neither Ben nor Rey talked to each other, but of course, they ended up together on the same watch again. They were silent at first, just sitting side by side next to each other. There was this icy presence between the two of them before Ben said, “I’m not going to kill you,”

“That makes me feel so much better,” Rey said sarcastically.

“I’m not,” Ben insisted, “I don’t like killing people.”

“Sure,” Rey shrugged, “I would say the same thing, but I do. So, I guess that’s another thing that makes the two of us different.”

“I can’t tell if that was a joke or not,” Rey couldn’t help but chuckle a little when he said that. Ben chuckled a little too. The ice started to melt. Rey didn’t like the fact that she was starting to feel more comfortable around him. She couldn’t help it though.

“Whatever will make you feel better,”

There was another pause between the two of them. Ben seemed to be full of questions that night. Rey wasn’t sure what to think about that. “What was it like?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, life. What was life like, before Kaydel and the rest of the group?” That was a question that Rey had never looked forward to answering. She was hoping that she would never get to that point with Ben. If she was being honest with him, no one knew what her life was like before she met Kaydel.

“Hell,” Ben didn’t say anything. Obviously waiting for her to keep going. She didn’t want to. But she did. She tried to keep it as vague as possible. “Every day since I was a child, I’ve been scared for my life.” That part was true. “I guess the self-preservation instincts were instilled in me very heavily when I was in the womb,” She gave a hollow laugh. Forcing herself to block out memories that she didn’t want to come to the surface right now. “Life was so purposeless back then though, I had nothing to fight for. And every second of every day I woke up saying, ‘ _this again? Seriously?’_ But at the same time, the thought of dying scared me more than anything. And then Kaydel came in and changed that. And for that I owe her my life,”

“That sounds awful,” Ben said.

“It was,” Rey said, “and lonely. Sometimes it’s hard to not feel like I’m still alone,” She wasn’t sure why she said that. She didn’t want to talk to Ben about this stuff, she didn’t want him to know anything about her.

“But you’re not alone,” He said. The way that he said that actually made her feel something warm. It started in her stomach and spread to her chest. “You’re not alone.”

She shouldn’t be this close to him.

This was dangerous.

Despite herself, she said, “Neither are you.”


	6. Glory and Gore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " _Dreams are possibilities, they are memories, they are the bridge between the spirit world and the human world._ " - **The Saints Guide to Deciphering the Gods**

_Rey was in a meadow. All of the plants were dead, and the air was chilly. Flattened dead grass surrounded her, giving her no place to hide. She felt more than exposed. She felt this—presence. The sort of presence that couldn’t be explained. Lately, all of her dreams had to do with the cleric. No matter how much she tried not to think about him. She couldn’t get him out of her head. And this dream was no different than the last few that she had._

_She turned to see him again, but this time the two of them were staring straight at each other. He had blood on his hands. “Rey?” He sounded confused and frightened. Like a lost little boy who was looking for guidance. He looked down to the ground and Rey followed his eyes, there was a big black lump of feathers, matted with blood. It was her._

_“What did you do?”_

_“You were going to kill me,”_

_“I don’t want to kill you,” The words that were coming out of her mouth were not her own. They were afraid. They were heartbroken. Rey just felt angry. Of course, this boy would do that. He was a cleric. That’s what clerics did._

_They purified the earth, no matter the cost._

_She shouldn’t expect any different than that._

_The scene changed, and Rey was alone in a graveyard. It was snowing, but her lungs felt like they were filled with ash. A low, gravelly voice echoed through the graveyard. It was laughing at her. Rey felt like she was being watched. “No. You’re not here,” She said. “You’re not here,” The laughter only got louder._

_Rey’s head felt like it was about to explode. And then he was there. Ben stood in front of her, and that should not have been a comfort. But he turned towards the darkness and made it disperse. Rey was safe._

*

Rey woke with a start and Ben was right next to her. He looked like he had just woken up as well. The two of them stared at each other for a second and then Rey groaned. “I want to go to sleep again.” She said.

“Well, you can’t.” Rose said. “We have to go, we’re almost to the next town and we need to get stocked up on supplies again,”

“Promise you guys won’t pick up another person, I barely started getting used to this one.”

“Aw, you’re used to me.” Ben smirked.

“Shut up, shithead.”

Both of them started laughing. Rose and the others stared at them like they had gone insane. “Did you two suddenly become friends?”

“What? No,” Rey said.

Ben shrugged, “I mean it wouldn’t be so bad if we were friends.”

“I don’t know how that would work,” Rey told him.

“I mean, yeah but still.” The look he gave her was cutting right through her chest. Rey didn’t want it to do that. She wanted to walk away and not feel anything after irritating him. But he wasn’t looking at her like she was a monster anymore; even though she was, and Rey liked that.

“You guys are weird,” Kaydel said.

“I’m glad you two are friends now,” Poe said, “you’re arguing was annoying the shit out of me.”

“Understandable, Ben can be very annoying sometimes.”

“Hey, I think that included you too.” Ben said.

“What? No, I’m perfect.” Rey said sarcastically. The two of them chuckled again and Jannah mumbled something about them being way too perky this morning. She was right. Despite the dream that she had just had, she didn’t feel quite as awful she usually did when she woke up in the morning.

She didn’t feel like killing anyone.

That was a little bit of an improvement.

So, the group dismantled their camp and got walking again. Poe said something about the next town being about ten miles away, which considering all the progress they made each day wasn’t that far of a walk. Rey still considered getting ahead of them and just waiting for them again, but she hated being alone so she stayed and walked alongside them until they made it to the cusp of the woods, the first building of the town allegedly just a mile off.

Rey bid them goodbye and flew off.

Hopefully, they wouldn’t take a long time this time.

*

Ben knew that he should listen to the gods. That was the job that the clerics did. But something kept preventing him from doing that today. He knew that it was just a matter of time before the gods decided that he wasn’t doing their bidding enough and got rid of him, but he thought that maybe he would be able to stall them just a bit longer. There were things about Rey that he didn’t know about. Things that she was holding back from even the rest of the group, and Ben wanted to figure her out. He wanted to know why the gods found her as much of a threat as she did.

The more he talked to her the more he realized something.

She was just lonely.

Like him.

And that didn’t warrant the judgement that the gods wanted to bring upon her.

Ben was lost in thought as he and Poe set up their room for the short stay that they were going to sleep in. This tavern was nicer than most, but Ben thought that the closer they got to the King’s territory, the nicer that places would be. After all, even the richer countrymen lived in the woods closest to the First Order’s territory. “You’ve been quiet,” Poe said.

“Huh? Yeah, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Poe shrugged. He paused, obviously considering what to say next. “So, um things are different between you and Rey now. Did you have a change of heart or something?”

Ben was silent for a minute, knowing that he needed to choose his next words carefully.

“I believe that there are things that I don’t understand because of the way I was raised. My upbringing. But um, being bullheaded and stubborn is a sin. And while I am also supposed to deliver the judgement of the gods, I don’t think that I myself should judge people. I was wrong for being rude to her, and I’m trying to make amends for that.”

“I think you’re the only cleric I’ve ever heard admit they’ve been wrong before,”

“Ha. Yeah, that’s unfortunate. But no being is perfect, except for the gods. No matter how hard they will never be, and I think that it takes a lot of people a long time to understand that.”

“I’m glad that you think that, because Rey really is a great person. She’s just a little misunderstood, you know?”

“Yes, I’m starting to see that now.” As the conversation started to die down, Ben could feel his stomach start to turn just a little bit. He knew that the gods were watching him at this very moment, and he could tell that some of them were less pleased with the way he spoke about Rey than others were.

All of them were silent though. The rest of the night was filled with rest. They had been travelling a long way, and Ben was glad to have a mattress to rest on for once. He prayed and cleansed the room and then went to sleep, hoping that nothing too dramatic would happen in his dreams.

*

_Every time Ben dreamed about dying, it was snowing. It was snowing here again, except this was different. Ben was watching somebody else. A cloaked figure was talking to someone just out of Ben’s line of sight. “You’re such an insolent creature, after everything I’ve done for you, the power that I’ve provided you, you forsake me like this?” The icy tone of the person who spoke made shivers run up Ben’s spine. “You are to do my bidding, or I will put you back underground.” Ben took a step forward, trying to get a look at this person and who they were speaking to._

_His voice stopped when he heard her. “You took everything from me,” The voice sounded almost human and afraid. It was higher and with a posh accent, but Ben could’ve sworn she sounded almost like Rey. But Rey’s voice was deeper, sounding more like a creature with razor sharp teeth and mildly garbled speech. “I just want to go, I don’t want to fight you. Just let me go.” The Rey he knew sounded a lot less—put together. Could this really be her? He must be imagining it._

_Ben took another step forward, hoping that he could finally figure out who he was dreaming about, but the ground opened up, and Ben was falling. He hit the ground and it took a minute for him to get his bearings. He was in a cave, he could tell by the rock underneath him and the steady drip drip drip of water coming from an underground spring, and the fact that he could barely see. “What are you doing here?”_

_This was the Rey that he knew._

_“Rey?”_

_“This is supposed to be a memory—you’re not here.” She was cloaked in darkness; Ben still couldn’t see her. “You need to leave,”_

_“I don’t know how.”_

_“What do you mean--?”_

_Suddenly the cave was alit, and Ben saw her. She was beaten and bloody with dirt matted in her feathers and she was no longer looking at him, she was looking right past him into the face of a cleric. He was older and more stoic looking, and Rey stopped talking. She looked younger now, almost like a child. And Ben was frozen, he couldn’t do anything. “I knew that you’d be in here,” The cleric said, holy energy emitted from his fingertips. “You’re an abomination, and it’s time that I purify this Earth of your darkness.”_

_“Please,” Rey said. She had the voice of a child. “I don’t hurt people, I just—I’m just trying to survive.”_

_“That’s what all monsters say,”_

_Ben wasn’t sure how to explain what happened next. All he could say was the sounds were sickening, and he closed his eyes, when he opened them again, Rey was standing above him with a heart in her hands. She looked at him with this curious far off look in her many eyes. “You seem shaken. Why? Your people do this all the time,”_

_“How old were you?”_

_“Twelve,” She shrugged._

_“That shouldn’t have happened to you, I am so sorry.”_

_Rey was silent for a minute. “I must be dreaming because this is—odd. I don’t know why I even told you this, when I wake up you’re not going to be there.”_

_That’s when it sank in._

_Was this really Rey?_

_Before he could ask her, he woke up._

*

Rey woke in the dark. She was unsure of what she had just witnessed. Somehow, Ben was inside of her dream. She felt the memory of his face slowly slipping from her grasp, but she knew that it was him. He had seen her dreams. Seen a memory of hers. And that scared her more than anything. No one knew about her childhood and what she had to go through before she got there, and she had kept it that way for a reason.

What would his reaction be when he woke up? Would he tell the others about what he saw? Or would he keep his mouth shut? Would he try and talk to her later? She dreaded the thought of that happening.

Her panic was interrupted by the need for her to eat, she got up, dusted herself off and went into the woods, looking for something that would give her enough of a chase to distract her.

She hated this.

*

Ben woke up in a cold sweat. He must’ve been screaming because Poe was up as well, “Woah, woah, woah. Why are you screaming? Are you okay?” It took Ben a minute to catch his breath. His heart was still racing.

“I-I’m okay,” He said after a minute.

“Are you sure? You sounded like you were about to get murdered.”

“I’m fine,” Ben insisted, “just a bad dream.”

Poe nodded and sat back down on his bed, “Do you get nightmares often?”

“Not really, no.” Ben said. That was a lie. One that he felt bad about too, but he didn’t want to talk about it. “It’s okay,” Ben told him, “You can go back to sleep.”

“Okay,” Poe said cautiously, “you should try too.” Ben nodded and fell back on his pillow. He was right. He couldn’t, though. He laid in the same place, thinking about her until the sun rose. Something told him that there was a reason that there dreams had connected like that, but he wasn’t sure why.

He knew that Rey would probably kill him if he brought it up to anyone else in the group, so he didn’t. He got up and started to pack up, ready to start moving. He didn’t want to think about Rey anymore. Poe woke up shortly after that, stretching and yawning. “Did you get any sleep?” He asked.

“Yeah,” Ben lied, “just got up early to make sure we didn’t have to wait to get all of our stuff and get out of here.”

“Right,” Poe said, “well I’m glad that you’re so eager to get out of here. Is there any particular reason why?”

“What? No,”

“So you don’t want to see Rey again?”

“Why would I want to see Rey again so soon? We’re going to see her when we’re done here,”

“I don’t know man, the two of you have just gotten closer than you have been since we started this thing. I was wondering if there was something going on that made you change your mind about her perhaps?”

“Uh,” Ben choked, “what?”

“You know like—”

“I mean, I’m just trying to be friendly to her. I don’t know what else you would be talking about.” Ben watched Poe roll his eyes, but was grateful when he didn’t bring it up after that. The two of them packed up what they had in their room and went downstairs, it took a minute for Rose, Kaydel, and Jannah to come down to meet them.

“Luckily, we still have enough coin for supplies, so we don’t have to do any jobs this time.” Rose said. “That way we don’t spend an extra long time away from Rey, you know how much she hates that.”

“Yeah,” Jannah agreed.

“Okay, so we need to stock up on medkits and I need a new blade.” Kaydel said.

“Why do you need a new blade?” Poe asked.

“Because,” She shrugged, and then pulled it out of her sheath. Everyone looked at the long knife that had had part of its blade break off. It was shattered and jagged at the end. “Of that.”

“Ah yeah, Kaydel needs a new blade.”

“And I need to stock up on arrows,” Jannah said.

“I want to look for spell bottles!” Rose said.

“Okay, we do need to conserve our coin though so remember, nothing too fancy, just enough to get us from Point A to Point B. Got it?”

“Got it,”

Ben was never the type of person that needed much, so he wasn’t going to pretend like he needed more than the medkits that they were going to buy, and maybe a little food along the way. He was quiet most of the time they were picking everything up, and of course, Rose was the first one who noticed it. “Are you okay?” She asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s just—you’re being quieter than usual.”

“Yeah, well. I have a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

“The gods have been relatively quiet lately,” That wasn’t a lie. Besides from the visit from Bastila a day and a half before, Ben had not had any of the gods try and talk to him. Were they really that mad at him for sparing Rey?

“Is that a bad thing?” 

“That the gods are quiet?”

“Yeah,”

“Um, it depends. Sometimes they just don’t want to talk to you, and that’s fine. A lot of the time, the gods leave when they deem what you’re doing not worth their time. They come back in times of danger, or when you need guidance. But I’ve always had a bit of a different experience with the gods than most other clerics. They’re mostly always there.”

“Oh,” Rose said, “I can see how that can be concerning,”

“Yeah,” Ben said.

“It is.”

“Do you think there’s a reason why they aren’t talking to you right now?”

Ben knew the reason that they were giving him the silent treatment, but he couldn’t exactly come out and tell Rose it was because he didn’t want to kill her friend, now could he? “Uh, I don’t know.” He shrugged. ‘

“Well, I’m sure that they’ll be back soon.” Rose told him.

“Yeah,” Ben agreed, “I’m sure they’ll be back soon as well.”

The conversation died down, Ben just zoned out of the conversation and walked along the rest of them. He wondered what Rey was doing right now.

*

Rey was used to nightmares. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had had a good dream. What she wasn’t used to was this. Connecting to someone in her dreams. She had still felt vulnerable.

She didn’t like the fact that the cleric knew something about her that others didn’t.

She hoped that he had the sense in himself to keep quiet about what he saw. Rey spent most of the time worrying about that. So much so that time seemed to blend together in this odd fashion, and she didn’t keep track of everything that was going on around her. Eventually, she heard them get to the check point they had agreed upon before they had parted ways.

Rey wasn’t really thinking when she swooped down from the trees and stopped Ben in his tracks, everyone else seemed to be doing something else. “We need to talk,” She said, “alone.” His eyes were wide but he nodded.

“Is everything alright?”

“Uh, yeah.” Ben said. “We’re just going to talk about something real quick,” The two of them walked down the path that they had just come from, and when Rey was sure they were out of earshot of everyone else she turned to him.

“Do you remember the dream?”

Ben’s eyes widened. Maybe he didn’t think that she would remember that too. She wasn’t sure. “You remember that too?”

“Yes,” She said. “Did you do something to look inside my head?” Was the first question that she asked. She found herself ready to attack, even though Ben had done nothing to incriminate himself yet.

“What? No,” Ben said, “that type of magic is dark and I don’t do that.”

“Then what the hell happened? How did we share the same dream?”

“Usually the gods show me things that they want me to see,” Ben said, “but I don’t know why they would want me to see that because—never mind.”

“What?”

“I said never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

There he was, driving her insane again. She decided not to press the matter anymore, because she knew that if she did, she would lash out at him. “Did you tell any of them about what you saw?”

“What? No,” She stared at him, listened to his heartbeat. He was telling the truth.

“Good,” She said, “then we’re fine here.”

“Good.” The two of them were silent for a while. Neither of them moving. “I’m sorry,”

“For what?”

“That you had to go through what you went through, that must’ve been terrible.” Rey turned, not sure how to answer him.

The only thing she could think to say was, “Don’t pity me.” Before she flew away.


	7. An Invisible String

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Secrets always come out in the end,"_ \- **Books Of Jedi II**

Things between Ben and Rey were odd to say the least, but they had always been odd. Over the next two weeks that passed, they went from driving each other crazy to laughing at each other’s jokes and sharing comfortable silences next to each other on the other’s watches at night. Ben wasn’t sure how to deal with it, but he supposed that this was better than the both of them wanting to kill each other twenty-four seven. There had been no more dreams where their minds had connected with one another, and Rey hadn’t asked about the gods anymore, and life was less stressful. Sometimes it was almost easy to forget that they were on a mission to kill the King of the First Order.

They were in the last strip of woods before they actually entered the deeper, more dangerous part of the forest. It would take about four weeks total for them to cross over onto the path that they needed to take, and Rey would stop being able to fly ahead in order to help them if they ran into trouble. “Can’t wait to finally kill something,” Rey said, “I’m so fucking bored.”

“Oh, are we not good enough company for you?” Ben asked, mostly joking.

“The company I keep is fine, excluding one.” She replied dryly, but by that time Ben was a little more used to her sense of humor. He knew that she was joking.

“Speak yourself,” Ben laughed, “I am rather fine.”

“Oh my god, I’m not sure what’s more annoying, the two of you fighting or the two of you doing whatever this is.”

“Aw, are we making you uncomfortable Poe?” Rey asked.

Poe rolled his eyes, “I just want to get to a lake or something. We need to replenish our water supply,”

“I told you that it’s two miles up, you just have to be patient.” Rey said.

“I am being patient,”

“You’re really not,”

“Someone didn’t get enough sleep,” Kaydel giggled.

“Yeah, seriously Poe.” Jannah said. “Damn.”

“Dehydration is a very serious issue, we need to stock up on water before we get going.”

“Dehydration is a very serious issue,” Rose said in a mocking tone. They giggled and Poe rolled his eyes.

“Okay, that did sound a little bit annoying now that you put it that way.”

All of them chuckled before the conversation died back down again. Ben and Rey walked side by side. And they stayed that way until they reached the lake.

*

Rey usually spent some time away from the rest of the group, just to sit by herself and worry about what was going to happen to them later on this mission and if they were all going to make it, and to tell herself to calm down if something made her upset. But she didn’t get that this time. She guessed that part of that had to do with the fact that she and the cleric were actually getting along with each other now, but now it was like everyone wanted to be by each other all the time. She just didn’t know how to handle that. Ben and her sat at the edge of the lake, Rey was silent for a while, as was Ben. But then he started talking. “What do you think is going to happen when we get to the palace? How are we going to get in?”

“I have no idea,” Rey told him, “but I’m sure that we’ll be able to get in and out without much difficulty. Well, you guys will. I’d stick out like a sore thumb. I’m probably going to be the distraction.” Ben was silent again.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well,” Rey said, “have you seen me? Out of all the group, I’m the most noticeable, so I’ll probably be the distraction, and die because the First Order has paladins working for them that will track me down, and you guys will get inside and kill the King.” She could tell that what she had just said made him feel uncomfortable.

“I don’t want you to die,”

It was Rey’s turn to be quiet. She didn’t know what to say to that.

“Okay,”

“I’m not –I don’t know, I think there has to be a better plan than that.”

“A better plan than that?” Rey felt like she was going to laugh. She didn’t though. Her stomach just turned up in knots in a way that she couldn’t really explain. “And what would that better plan be?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said, “but you don’t deserve to die. I’ll figure something out.”

“I’m sure you will,”

“I’m quite good at figuring stuff out,”

It was cute to her, that he wanted to help her so much. But Rey didn’t know why. She couldn’t wrap her head around it. The two of them had been acting nicer towards each other, and Rey would almost go to venture that she could call him her friend, or the closest thing to a friend that she could get. But she wasn’t sure if he would call her the same thing. Surely he had better people to associate with than her, he was a cleric after all. And clerics didn’t like to associate with monsters. She had learned that the hard way.

“Sure you are,” Rey scoffed.

“Just you wait, I will.”

“And what makes you think that you’ll want me alive by the time that we get there?” It was something that she knew sounded odd. She probably shouldn’t have asked that question.

But she did anyways.

“I’m going to wash off,” She sighed, “I hope that we get moving soon.”

*

Another week had passed by and a lot of things had changed between Ben and Rey. Ben wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it. At first, the two of them were silent as they began to enter the deeper depths of the forest, but Rey looked alert. Her eyes seemed to sharpen as she kept walking across the forest floor and she told everyone that they needed to keep their talking to a minimum. It had been two days in when they were attacked by a manticore and a malevolent poltergeist. The poltergeist seemed to have particular interest in Ben, electing to tear its tainted fingers into his skin after the manticore had managed to sting him. He didn’t remember what happened after that, but he remembered what the rest of the group told him. “Rey saved your life,” Kaydel had said when he woke up, asking what had happened.

“Really?” He had asked her.

“Really,” Kaydel had told him, “I’m being serious. You had just managed to vanquish the poltergeist when you dropped to the ground and we thought that was it for you because the manticore was headed towards you like you were some sort of midnight snack, and then Rey put herself in the way in this very brave but stupid move that could have gotten her killed and she sunk her teeth into its neck and tore out it’s jugular and she killed it.”

Rey was sitting not far off in a tree, barely visible to Ben. If she were closer, he would’ve told her thank you. Because he did appreciate the fact that she had helped save him, especially when the gods were quiet still.

Part of Ben worried that they had left him, because he had not obeyed them when he was told to kill Rey. The other part of him knew that the closer that they got to the territory of the First Order, the harder it would be for his gods to reach him.

Perhaps they were just saving their strength in order to contact him later.

He went with that.

He didn’t get a chance to talk to Rey until the next day when the two of them were walking alongside each other. The trees were dark and thick and made it nearly impossible to see at points, but this was where Rey felt like she could be at home. That much was clear. “You humans are so noisy,” She said after Ben stepped on a tree branch.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay.” Ben was silent for a minute before he opened his mouth. Rey beat him to the punch. “No,”

“What?”

“No,”

“What do you mean ‘no’? You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“I presumed you were going to thank me and then we were going to have some god awful mushy moment, where I say it was no problem and you make that face.”

Ben chuckled quietly and Rey couldn’t help but do the same. “You really don’t like being vulnerable, do you?”

“You have no idea,”

*

Rey hated to admit it, but she was getting into fond of the cleric. Which was something that she had not seen coming. It made her feel a bit nauseous. The two of them talked a little bit more before going silent. The two of them had been like this for the past two weeks, just talking, getting a little bit closer. And Ben always listened to her. That was something that she hadn’t thought was going to happen.

Rey liked talking to him, and that was utterly dangerous. ‘ _Things so beautiful are rarely ever trustworthy,’_ She told herself after every single time she talked to him. That usually helped her get away from that part of her mind that was telling her to get closer to him. She hated the feeling of getting pulled closer to him, and yet the more time they spent closer together, the more that she could feel it happening.

She did nothing to stop it either.

“You’re being awfully quiet, even for you.” Rey said one day. It was the first time that she had really started a conversation between the two of them. It felt odd to her. Still, she decided that she was just going to roll with it. “Are you doing okay?” It was the one time that they were all taking a break. Everyone was pretty tired, but it seemed that Rey and Ben were the ones that slept the least out of the group, because they were the only two that were still awake.

“What do you care?” Ben asked sarcastically.

“Oh I don’t,” Rey said back, “I just miss that constant annoying droning of your voice twenty-four-seven.”

“ _Wow,”_ Ben rolled his eyes.

Rey paused, “You know that I’m joking. But uh—are you okay? You’ve been very quiet lately, you always look like you’re lost in thought.”

“Yeah,” Ben said, “I’m fine.” Something told Rey that he wasn’t fine, but she wasn’t going to push it anymore than she had to. She never told him anything about her life, he shouldn’t have to tell her anything about his life. That was how it was, and to push information out of him was unfair to him. Still, she wondered if he was okay. Eventually, Ben said something. “Actually, there was something on my mind.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Um, sure.”

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Rey said almost immediately. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to say something to me.”

“No,” Ben said, “it’s okay. Uh—there’s not really much to it, but the gods haven’t been speaking to me.” Rey wanted to joke and ask him if that was supposed to be a bad thing or not, but she knew that would probably piss him off. Now was not the right time for jokes.

“Oh,” She said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Ben shrugged, “I knew that when I started on this mission, the closer I got to the First Order, the less powerful that my gods would be. They would need to conserve their energy for me, so unfortunately, they’re just not there with me right now. The feeling is—odd. It was like they’ve always been there in my life and now that they’re not, I don’t really know what to do with myself.”

“I think I sort of know what you mean,” Rey said. She wasn’t thinking when she said this, and now she was wishing that she could just take it back. Unfortunately, she knew that she couldn’t. Ben looked up at her, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rey sighed, knowing that she would have to choose her next words carefully. “Um, there was someone in my life that was always there, but I guess for me it wasn’t necessarily a good thing that this person was there. They were always a negative influence in my life, always there trying to think of a new way to make me miserable, and then I left, and they weren’t there to control me anymore. So I had to figure out what I wanted to do by myself, and what type of person, not just monster, I was going to be. And that was difficult. It was really difficult to do, even when I felt so alone.”

“That must’ve been so difficult to go through,” Ben said.

“Yeah,” She said, “I guess it was. But uh, that was just the hand I was dealt. There’s no reason to dwell on the past.”

“I guess you’re right,”

“Yeah, I am.”

“I’m glad that you survived that,” He told her. That made her heart flutter in a way that she didn’t want it to. She missed the days when she was convinced that this boy wanted to kill her, because that would make things so much easier.

It would make him predictable.

But him acting like this was different. And Rey wasn’t sure how to respond to it in the slightest.

“You should go to bed, Ben.” She told him.

  
“I—”

“I’ll take first watch,” Rey said. “You need to get some rest.” He didn’t argue any more after that.

*

_This was different and jarring from the rest of the dreams that Ben had. The dreams that he was used to. He was no longer in some form of nature, but in a corridor in a place that he had never been in before. Was this another memory? Would Rey be here as well? “Rey!” He called out for her, but there was no answer. Everything was dark around him and it was hard to see. He took a deep breath, trying to figure out his surroundings. He sighed, knowing that whatever happened was not going to be good._

_He hadn’t had a good dream in a while. It took a minute for him to find a light source. This time he was in a temple. This was something that he had not seen before, and for a second, he wondered if it was a memory of Rey’s. But then he realized—this was hallowed ground. There was no way that she would set foot in a place like this._

_At least not willingly. This was something new._

_Ben wasn’t sure if he should be alarmed by that. After a second, he saw himself, outside of his body. A sense of dread filled his stomach as he watched himself walk up to the altar and stand there with a knife. He was glowing. Surrounded by an aura of death which could only mean one thing._

_He had completely accepted Asaji Ventress as his patron god. He heard a growl from the darkness. “You’re powerless here,” The other him said. “So I’d be careful before attacking me.”_

_“I should’ve known that you would betray me,” It was Rey’s voice, but darker, deeper. More monstrous than it was before. “And after everything I did for you,” The other Ben laughed at that. Ben couldn’t watch. He didn’t want to watch this. It was becoming very apparent to him that he didn’t want to be in a world where he and Rey were fighting, ready to kill each other. It was making him feel sicker and sicker by the minute._

_“Try not to take it personally,” The other Ben said, “you’re a monster. It’s my duty to kill you, and any form of darkness I come across.”_

_“Hm,” Rey said, “I see.” Then she stepped out from the darkness. Each step she took steaming hot. Ben could hear her flesh sizzling as she kept walking. Something was different about her. “So, I’m going to give you the first shot, Ben. Kill me, I know you think I deserve it.”_

_“What’s the catch?” The other Ben looked suspicious._

_“If you miss I rip your heart out,” Rey hissed, “very slowly.”_

_Ben backed up, he hated this. As he backed up, he ran into someone else. Rey. She stood still in her spot, not registering the fact that Ben was there for a second before she spoke. “Well,” She said, “this is rather dark.” She looked down at him and he knew what she was going to say next._

_“Why didn’t you tell me your patron god was a god of death?”_


	8. I Found The Savior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " _Damnation comes in many forms_ ," - **Books of the Jedi**

Rey woke up with a jolt, and Ben did a second later. She started backing up from him quietly, shaking. “Rey,” He looked like he was in pain as she bolted. She did not fly off. She just ran. Ben ran after her. She knew that she could get away from him faster if she just launched off, but something was keeping her grounded. They ended up in a different part of the forest, a fairy ring of trees encapsulating them when Rey turned around. “Rey, please stop running. Let me explain,”

Rey turned around with this fury that she didn’t think she had in her, “Why didn’t you just tell me in the first place?”

“Because you never would have started to trust me!” Ben said. “When someone hears that Asaji Ventress is my patron god, they think I’m there to destroy their home and kill their morally bankrupt husband or something like that. That’s not what I like to do! I hate killing people, I really do. I hate it. That’s why I don’t tell anyone.”

“And what of monsters? I guess you aren’t opposed to that then, are you?” Rey wished that she could say that she enjoyed seeing Ben flinch. But the truth was quite the opposite.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Ben said quietly.

“What?” Rey let out a low and hollow laugh. Her nerves were making her feel like a wreck. She didn’t know why she trusted this boy at all. Why had she let her walls down to him? This was exactly what she had been trying to avoid. “Why wouldn’t you want to kill me? I’ve heard of your gods before; I know of the Death Gods. I know that they speak trouble for me and my kind,” She watched Ben, who looked like he was going to throw up.

“I didn’t choose this!” He shouted. Rey went quiet. It was the first time that she had ever seen him so close to tears and she wasn’t sure what to do about it. “All of my life, everything’s been chosen for me. Ever since I’ve known that I can talk to the gods, the only thing I’ve wanted to do was help people. I wanted a god of medicine or something to be my patron god, but instead I got this! And that’s why I haven’t claimed her yet, and I’m not going to. Because I don’t like hurting anyone, and I never have. And I never want to hurt you. Ever. I’d rather die before I do that,”

Rey wished that this speech that he was giving her wasn’t working. She wished that she could say that this beautiful boy in front of her who had put aside their differences to try and make things work wasn’t making her feel like she was melting. Like she was helpless. But he was. And she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t stop herself from feeling this way. Vulnerable.

And that’s when it started to rain.

Water poured down and thunder roared and the two of them just stared at each other. “I promise you that I’ll never hurt you, and if I do, well then you have a reason to kill me.” He took a step closer to her, the downpour making his soft black hair stick to his face. Rey stood still where she was. She didn’t know what else to do. “Just please, promise me that you won’t tell the others.”

Rey realized that she had a choice here.

Tell her friends and betray Ben or protect him and betray her friends.

What was another lie, though?

She had already told way too many of them.

*

Rey sighed, having a feeling that she was probably going to regret this later. “Fine,” She said, “I won’t tell anyone.” He looked so relieved when she said this. He took a step forward to her and she almost took a step back. Almost.

“Thank you,” He said.

“It’s really not that—” And that’s when he hugged her.

Ben knew that he probably shouldn’t have hugged her. He knew that it was a risk to do such a thing and he really should have asked her if it was okay before he went ahead and did it. But he did. And Rey just stood there. When he quickly let go of her and said, “Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry,” She let out a spluttering noise.

“I-it’s fine,” She said. “Let’s just get back to camp before people realize why we’re gone,”

“Thank you,” He said, “you have no idea how much this means to me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Rey started to walk away. “Just don’t think I did this because I like you or something like that.”

“Right,” Ben laughed a little, “we wouldn’t want to confuse each other or something like that.”

“Exactly.” Rey said. “Now come on, cleric. Let’s get back to camp.”

After that, things were a bit odd to say the least. Rey was silent a lot of the time. Nothing much happened. They got into a few encounters with some lesser monsters, but that was the most excitement that they got so far. Ben was glad that nothing too exciting had happened yet. They still weren’t that closed to reaching the border, and something too devastating like that could lend to trouble for the group. Each night he prayed to the gods.

Each night he didn’t get an answer.

He and Rey would talk.

She never said anything about her past.

Ben knew that he shouldn’t press her. But he found himself revealing more and more about himself. And Rey was a really good listener. So he just let a little more of himself spill out every single time that the two of them talked to each other. He supposed that he should probably stop telling her things. The Gods definitely would not be happy that he was talking to her so much, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to talk to her. They grew closer in a way that Ben didn’t expect.

So when they hit a town in the middle of the forest, Ben said that he was going to stay back with Rey and the rest of the group could go ahead. Rey looked a little surprised when he had said that, as did the rest of the group. “You don’t have to do that,” She said, “you deserve to rest your head on a bed a little.”

“It’s fine,” Ben said, “I want to.”

“Okay then,” Jannah said, “well, it’ll be a few days before we get done with things. We need to replenish our money and everything.”

“You two take care,” Poe had said.

“Yeah, try not drive each other crazy.”

Then the two of them were alone.

*

Rey wished that she could say that she convinced Ben to go ahead and go with the rest of the group, but she didn’t. Now she was here right next to him and the two of them were walking side by side and even though he was right next to her, Rey still couldn’t stop thinking about them. What had happened over the past few days and what it meant. If Rey was being honest, she was starting to enjoy Ben’s company a lot more than she had before. Even when they had finally made a truce. He had told her things about himself that made Rey trust him more.

He didn’t ask her anything about her past. And Rey was glad about that. The dreams between them had stopped as well. And he hugged her. Twice. No one had ever done that. She didn’t want to tell him that was the first time that she had ever been hugged, because that would be making it weird.

But she had a feeling that he already had a feeling that was the first time that she had ever been hugged by anyone.

She wanted him to hug her again.

She didn’t say anything about that though.

She kept thinking about how utterly mortifying it would be for the two of them if she asked him for something like that. The two of them kept walking in silence when Rey blurted out, “Thank you.” Ben glanced up at her and Rey felt more nervous than she ever had in her life.

“For what?”

“For staying behind,” She said, “I don’t like to tell people this but I just—I don’t like being alone. It’s not the greatest thing ever.” Rey was glad that it was the middle of the day and her eyesight was worse than shit, because she did not want to see the look on Ben’s face right now after she had told him that.

What happened instead was him grabbing her arm and helping her through the more uneven parts of the forest floor, telling her when there was something ahead that she should look out for. Rey didn’t want to rely on him. She didn’t want to trust him. She didn’t want to like him. This was bad. This was really bad.

_‘But there was nothing that I could really do about it? Is there?’_ She thought to herself.

Rey realized something in that moment that he touched her arm that she wished that she hadn’t.

She was starting to fall for him.


	9. Pray The Sun Will Rise

Rey and Ben sat down on the bank of a small creek. Ben was replenishing their water bags and Rey was silent. It was clear to him that she was thinking about something right now. But he wasn’t sure what it was. He knew better than to ask as well. “What was growing up for you like?” Rey asked out of the blue. He raised an eyebrow, knowing that she probably couldn’t see him do that. It was too bright out for that. “I know that you told me some about your older teenage years, but I mean what was it like for you when you were a child?”

“You want to know about my childhood?”

“Yeah,” Rey said, “I didn’t really have one at all. So, I guess it’d be interesting to hear about.”

“I mean,” Ben sighed, “I didn’t really have much of one, you know?”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Rey told him.

“No, I do.” He said. “I just—I just feel like—I don’t know. You never really tell me a lot about yourself and I wish that I knew more about you.” Rey looked a little bit uncomfortable when he said that, and he wasn’t sure why. But he was prepared to tell her that she didn’t need to say anything about herself that she didn’t feel like saying when she sighed.

“What do you want to know about me?”

“I don’t know, I mean—what of your childhood? Were you always--?”

“Was I always a monster?”

“I didn’t mean like that,”

Rey was silent for a minute and Ben was about to apologize when Rey responded, “Yes.” Something in Ben’s head started to burn. And then the voice of the goddess that had been absent from him for so long spoke.

‘ _She’s lying.’_

*

“Like I said,” Rey told him, “I didn’t have a childhood.”

“That’s fair,” He said. He sounded a little uncomfortable and Rey was not sure why. She didn’t pry though. “I suppose that it’s only fair that I tell you about what little of mine that I had.” Rey watched as he finished filling up their drinking water and sat back. “Honestly, at first everything was pretty okay. I guess that I could say that I had a more rigid environment to grow up in with more expectations than other people, but I know that my mother and father loved me a lot and I know that that is something that not everybody is lucky to have. I was never really good at making friends though, but people liked to hang around me because of my family’s stature and everything.”

“Were they really important?”

“To the town I lived in? Yes, definitely. They were really important to them, they financed a lot of the town. And so I would have people around me trying to pretend to be my friend so that their parents could get into good graces with my parents. But that stopped when the gods started to talk to me.”

“That must’ve been hard,”

“Yeah, it was. It was a weird transition, going from a bunch of younger kids to older people that I knew for a fact that I was some sort of nuisance, but I got used to it. And I liked studying, I like worshipping the gods and feeling like I have someone to protect me. I really do. But it was hard at the time,” There was something that Ben wasn’t telling her about him being a cleric. Just like he hadn’t told her about his patron goddess. Something in Rey wanted to ask him if he was really happy in the position that he was in now.

But he knew what would happen if she asked him that.

He would lie.

And Rey didn’t judge him for that. She lied all the time. But she didn’t want that question to make him uncomfortable. So she didn’t say anything.

“When I was little, there was this festival that I used to go to. They used to have these things called mooncakes, have you ever had a mooncake?”

“Do I look like I’ve had a mooncake?” Rey asked, chuckling a little. 

“Right. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” She shrugged. “So, what are these mooncakes like? They sound good,”

“They were so delicious, and probably really bad for you.” Ben chuckled a little. “They were so good though, it was totally worth it.”

“Huh,” Rey said, “maybe one day I could have one of these—mooncakes.”

“I think that I could make that happen.” Ben grinned and Rey felt light. It was an odd feeling that she didn’t really know how to compare to anything else. She giggled a little bit and couldn’t help but smile. If she was being honest, this was the happiest that she had ever felt in her life. Right here with Ben.

She wondered if he felt the same way.

_‘He probably doesn’t,’_ She thought to herself. ‘ _That would be too good to be true, and you know that you never get anything like that.’_

*

Ben had never felt so happy before until he had heard Rey laugh for the first time. It wasn’t a laugh out of malice but a true one, out of happiness, it was light and airy and nothing like what he had heard from her before and it caught him off guard a little. But he smiled and laughed a little too. “Maybe we could go to a festival some time,”

“And how do you think that you’d sneak me into a festival?” Rey said. “I’m not exactly easy to conceal,”

“I don’t know,” Ben said, “but I’m capable of a lot.”

“Trust me, I know cleric. Sometimes you shock me with your power.”

That’s when Ben paused. He looked up at her. “Really?”

Rey nodded, “I think that you’re more powerful than you give yourself credit for.” She told him. “I think that your gods are holding you back, and I know that that’s blasphemous to say but I know that I’m going to your version of hell anyway.”

“I’d like to think that you’re not going to hell,” Ben said.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah,” He said, “I just don’t think that bad people go to hell.”

“Even if they’re abominations like me?” He could hear the cynicism in her voice, but that didn’t deter him from looking her straight in the face and saying something that had been on his mind for a while.

“I don’t think that you’re an abomination,” That stopped Rey right in her tracks. It was clear that she didn’t know what to do after being told that. The two of them were quiet for a while. The sound of crickets chirping, and the creek flowing was the only thing to occupy them.

“Really?”

“Really,” Ben said, “and I know that you’re going to say that I’m just saying that I’m just saying that. But I’m not. I really like you, Rey. And I don’t think that you’re an abomination.” Ben wished that he could read minds, but he could not. He watched her and tried to figure out what she was thinking, because she certainly wasn’t saying it. Unfortunately, Rey had never been one who was so easy to read. He held his breath a little, thinking that he might have said the wrong thing, waiting for her to speak next.

“Well, cleric.” Rey said. “I think that might be the nicest thing that anyone’s ever said to me.”

She had this far off look in her many eyes and sighed. “We might as well get going. Make sure that we have a campsite ready before it gets too dark.” Ben nodded and got up, watching her carefully as she did too. She smiled at him. It was this small smile, but one that he noticed all the same. Ben was grateful for every time that he could see her happy. It made him feel like he was doing something right, and he had no idea why. The two of them walked side by side for a while, and Ben kept glancing at Rey. She finally said something.  
“Is there any particular reason that you keep looking at me like that?” She asked him.

“Uh, no.” He said nervously. “I just can’t wait to spend some alone time with you,”

Another smile.

A soft one.

Barely noticeable.

“You really know how to sweet talk a girl, don’t you, cleric?” Ben couldn’t help but blush terribly at that, running a hand through his hair.

“I uh—um,” That’s when Rey really laughed, and Ben chuckled a little too. The two of them found a nice place to camp. Ben realizing that this was the first time they had found a place in this part of the woods that looked tranquil. It was protected by a cropping of rocks that made it impossible for intruders to sneak up on them. There was a bunch of flowers in the small field where they were going to take camp and the grass was soft too. Ben couldn’t believe their luck. They made camp and then sat down, Rey flexing her wings and picking at them a little.

They were silent for a little before they started talking again. Rey asked a question that Ben was caught off guard by. “Have you ever loved anyone before?”

He nearly choked on air. “What?”

“Have you ever loved anyone before?” Rey repeated the question. She sounded curious, and Ben wanted to know why but the question wouldn’t get out of his mouth. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m just trying to make conversation with you. You’ve clearly experienced more of life than I have, so—”

“—Honestly, no.” Ben said. “Not romantically, which I think is what you’re meaning. I love the Gods I worship, and I love my parents, but no I’ve never loved anyone any other way before.”

Rey was silent for a little before she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced any type of love.” She sounded so sad. There was this darkness in her voice that made Ben’s heart hurt. “I mean, I don’t think that anyone would ever love me platonically. Or romantically. No one would be attracted to me like this,”

“I don’t think that’s true,”

Rey looked up at him, “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean not everyone looks at looks as the way to figure out who they want to be with, for me it’s personality, and the bond that I feel that I have with someone. That’s how I decide, and you may not think that you’re beautiful, but you are. I think that you are.”

That was when he made Rey cry.

*

Being vulnerable was the first feeling in the world. Rey felt so embarrassed when she felt the sting of her tears slip down her cheek and hit the feathers on her neck. She was quiet when she cried, she had learned how to cry without making a sound when she was a child. Still, Ben noticed. He looked absolutely devastated, “Did I hurt your feelings? I didn’t mean to. I just meant to say that you were really pretty. Both inside and out. I think that you’re really pretty. I think you’re magnificent even, and I really like you and I don’t think you should give up hope on finding someone.”

She sniffed, trying to compose herself. It wasn’t working very well. “Why are you acting so nice to me, cleric?” She asked.

His eyes softened. The lights were low and the only thing between them were the embers of a campfire. “Isn’t it obvious?” Ben asked her. “Because I really like you a lot, and I care about you.” Rey closed all of her eyes, wishing that she could be anywhere else but here.

Wishing that she could keep herself from falling.

When she opened her eyes, Ben was right next to her. “Here,” He said, “let me.” Rey was cautious but nodded as he pulled out a small handkerchief. He dabbed at her tears softly. His gentle touch was almost intoxicating. When he was done, he put the handkerchief up and asked her, “Do you want a hug?” Rey nodded silently. Ben gave her one. It was warm and inviting and Rey smiled. She didn’t know what else to do but stay there and let him hug her.

Rey wished that the two of them could stay like this forever. That neither of them had to go to the First Order and complete this mission. She wondered what would happen to them when they got there. She wondered if Ben would still feel the same way about her when they crossed that border.

She tried her best not to think about it. “Thank you,”

Ben sat down next to her and the two of them became silent for a second. Rey wished that she knew how to keep this moment going, but she didn’t. She was silent for a long time before she told Ben that he should probably go to sleep and she would take the first watch. He nodded, appreciative and went to sleep.

*

The next day was a little different than the first. There was nothing bad about that, at least not in Ben’s eyes. They had made it to the opposite end of the town and Ben was looking up at the trees. “What’s it like to be able to get up in those?” He asked Rey.

“What, have you never climbed a tree before?” She asked him.

“I have. Not well though,”

“It’s good for when you want to get away from conversation,”

“I’d imagine so,” He paused before he said, “you haven’t felt the need to get away from a conversation yet. Have you?”

“Huh? No, I guess not.” She had this far away look in her eyes that Ben didn’t know how to describe. The two of them set up camp again and Rey sat down. She was quiet. Quieter than usual and Ben had no idea why, but he hoped that he hadn’t said something last night that was making her uncomfortable.

“By the way, I still need to thank you for not telling the others about my patron god.”

“It’s no problem,” She said, “I know what it’s like to feel the need to keep secrets from others to keep yourself safe.” She didn’t elaborate on that, but Ben didn’t pressure her to. He knew that if she was going to tell him about herself, that she would do it on her own time. Ben appreciated that about her.

After that small bout of silence in the morning, the two of them talked more. Ben told her stories of his youth, and Rey listened. She seemed fascinated by each and every tale that he told her, and she would be quiet, only occasionally interjecting to ask him things about his youth. Ben enjoyed the company that he kept with her more than anything. He quickly realized that he enjoyed being around her more than the company of anyone else in the group that the two of them were a part of.

Rey was different. She challenged him in a way that he liked, and she cared. There was so much more about her that Ben liked, he knew that the gods would disapprove of this. Would disapprove of the fact that they were so close together.

But for the first time in forever, Ben was choosing something that he wanted.

Not something that the gods wanted for him.

They got closer when night fell.

“You know, a lot of my childhood is either bad memories or blanked out.” Rey told him. “But uh, I do remember this one thing—this one good thing before I finally met Kaydel and my life changed. There used to be this lake that I would go to at night, and the stars would reflect off the surface in a way that I thought was almost magical. It was the only place where I had ever felt safe. I spent so much time there, it might sound like nothing and pretty boring. But it always made me feel really happy to be there.”

“That doesn’t sound boring.” Ben said. “I bet it was magical,” The fire crackled and Ben heated up some meats that he had acquired with Rey’s help and started cooking some for Rey.

“It was,” She said, “the sad thing about that though is even though that was one of my happiest places, I was always still alone. I felt lonely all the time.” Ben looked up at Rey when she said that. He had these feelings in his chest that he couldn’t explain.

Was that butterflies?

The more he took Rey in, the more he realized that it was.

He had feelings for her.

“You’re not alone anymore,” Ben said.

They were barely an inch away from each other’s face, and Ben knew if he did what he was about to do next his relationship with the gods would change forever. But he didn’t care. This was something that he wanted more than anything. He had spent all of his life serving the gods, and for once he just wanted to do something a little bit selfish. He wanted to have something that would make him happy. That would make him feel whole. So, he asked Rey one question. “Can I kiss you?”

When she nodded wordlessly, he completed the distance between the two of them. They kissed. He could taste darkness on her lips, but there was something else there was well. It was this purity and light that wasn’t just coming from him. It was magical.

Rey was the first one to pull away. She looked dazed. “Was that okay?”

“Yes,” She nodded, “that was amazing.”

Ben smiled at her. He felt good about what just happened, until this feeling of dread spread in his stomach. The gods did not approve.


	10. now i think i'm possessed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Damnation may seem sweet at first,"_ \- **Books of the Jedi**

Rey had never been kissed before. She wished she had more time to think about the positive, but she felt this burning sensation in her lungs and she quickly looked away from Ben, feeling like she was going to faint. But before she did, Ben did. She turned around and saw him limp on the ground, blood trickling out from his nose and she panicked. She had no idea what she was supposed to do in a situation like this. “Ben?” She called. “Ben? Are you okay?” Her heart started to race as she thought that this might’ve been a mistake.

Maybe the two of them were never supposed to have this happen. Maybe she should have just buried her feelings deep down inside of her. She wasn’t sure what else to do, but she knew that if she did something to wake him up, his gods might not be happy with what she did. Rey looked all around her to make sure that no one was coming. She raised her arm and split open a small bit of skin, blood instantly coming to the surface. She let a bead of blood slip down his throat and muttered an old incantation.

Blood magic was incapable of healing people.

Rey knew that.

But it would certainly wake him up from whatever trance he was in.

*

_Ben was being punished. He was immediately thrown down by a force that he couldn’t see and when he looked up, he was in a prison. He coughed and looked up to see the shadow of his patron goddess standing there, her form was flickering, and it was clear that she wasn’t at full strength here. “What has gotten into you?” She asked. “I know that you’ve been insolent before, but this is just a new low. Falling for scum like that?”_

_“Rey is not scum,” Ben said. It was the first time he had never feared talking back to his patron goddess. “And she’s never proven to be what you say she is, so I don’t see what the p—” His throat was cut off by her as she continued to speak._

_“You’re straying from the mission. I don’t understand why, you need to be obedient and compliant. Do you understand me?”_

_“Tell me why I should hate Rey,”_

_“Because I have decreed it as such,” She said simply, “and you follow my demand, cleric. Or I can replace you, and send someone else that will kill that bitch.”_

_Before Ben could open his mouth, the dream was gone._

*

Ben shot up, coughing and spluttering. Rey was looking at him with an intensity that he hadn’t seen in her. She was worried about him. Something that happened had scared her. “Are you okay?” Ben’s head hurt, but that was it. He was trying to grasp the message that Asaji Ventress had sent him, but he couldn’t. It was slipping from him in a way that they usually didn’t.

“Uh, yeah.” He dabbed at his nose. It was bleeding. “I probably don’t look okay,”

“No,” Rey said, “you don’t.”

“Sorry about that,”

“Why did you just—faint?”

He was about to tell her what had happened but the words escaped him, like a fleeting memory of something that happened years ago. Ben’s eyes unfocused and refocused, and he said, “I don’t remember.” She stared at him, obviously confused. “It doesn’t matter though, it’s fine.” He went to get up and sit next to Rey but she moved away.

“It’s not fine,” She said, “what if I hurt you?” There was this genuine pain in her voice that Ben had never heard before. “

“Rey, I’m fine.” He said.

“You’re not fine, you wouldn’t have fainted otherwise.” She was worried about him. Ben wished that he could say he was flattered. He wished that he could say that he managed to get Rey to calm down a little, but he didn’t. She took off before he got a chance to say anything, and he couldn’t seem to find her in the trees.

He sat down by the campsite and sighed, “Great.”

*

Rey didn’t come back down to the ground until she was sure that the rest of the group was nearby, that way when she came back down, Ben couldn’t try and ask her about everything going on. He wouldn’t try and reassure her of everything. Ben still opened his mouth to speak, looking tired and a little bit out of it. But he closed his mouth when he heard the rest of the group coming. Rey turned, smelling food on them. Her stomach growled. “Hey!” Poe said. “I hope you guys didn’t decide to kill each other,”

“Nope,” Rey said, “we’re good. What about you?”

“Well,” Poe said, “Kaydel got you a flank of deer.” Her stomach started growling more.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Kaydel appeared a minute later with a rucksack. She let the meat topple and Rey immediately was thankful of the distraction of food. She was also glad that when the rest of the group went to talk to Ben, he didn’t mention what had happened the night before. He probably knew better than to mention something that Rey hadn’t given him permission to speak about. Rey tore into her food and listened to them talk about some of their escapades, and about how an informant told them that the King’s General Snoke was starting to take children from their homes in bordering towns of the First Order for some unknown experiment of his.

Rey’s blood ran cold at that. She forced herself to finish her food, and then stood up. “All the more reason for us to get going. The sooner that we’re out of here and to the border, the sooner that we get to the First Order, the sooner that we can put an end to all of their atrocities.”

“Can we at least rest first?” Rose said. “We’ll get there eventually,”

“Do you think the children that he’s taking will get to rest? No, he’s probably making them into child soldiers.”

“Rey—”

“What?”

“We just got out here, give us a few minutes.” Rey growled and turned around. “Fine, you know what? I’ll see you guys later,” Without much thought, she flew off. She was glad to be away from them. She didn’t think that she could take this right now.

*

Ben hadn’t seen Rey in about a week since the two of them had kissed for the first time, and he was starting to worry about her. Ever since the mention of Snoke, she had been set off. And Ben had no idea why, but now she was way ahead of them, obviously clearing a path to the next safe camping spaces, but not being anywhere nearby when they arrived at said spaces. “She’s not sleeping,” Kaydel said, “this is bad.”

“I mean, she doesn’t usually sleep.” Ben said.

“Yeah, I know. But she at least sleeps a little bit, at the rate she’s moving she’s not sleeping at all. This is going to mess her up if she doesn’t get some rest.” He knew that she was right. He had no idea how to reach her though. He quietly ate his dinner and thought to all of the communications he had had with her in his dreams.

It had never been something that Ben had done on purpose.

But could it be done on purpose?

He wondered why he had never tried this before, scolding himself a little in the process. He didn’t say anything to the rest of the group though. He doubted that Rey would like it if he mentioned that the two of them could communicate via dreams, because then they would ask him for information on her that not even they had. Ben just waited until he was about to sleep and meditated.

He had done this so many times before, but this time it felt a tiny bit sacrilegious. He meditated and focused on Rey. Prayed to her even though she was not one of his gods, and after that, he fell asleep.

*

_Ben was perched in a tree when he found Rey in his dreams, Rey was wide eyed when she noticed that he was right next to her. “What the hell?” She cursed. He chuckled a little bit, noticing that she was a little bit nervous still._

_“Hey,” He said._

_“How did you get here?”_

_“Astral projection,” He said, “why?”_

_“You clerics are so weird,” She sighed and looked up at the sky, “what do you want from me?”_

_“I wanted to tell you that you needed to sleep, being up so often is not good for you. You’re going to snap at some point, and I don’t want that to happen to you.”_

_“Why? Why do you care?”_

_“Why wouldn’t I care?” Ben retorted. “I like you, Rey. You know that. You know that I have feelings for you. I care. I want you to make sure that you’re safe and that you are taken care of, sue me for actually having feelings, why don’t you?” Rey looked at him with this apprehension in her eyes, it was clear that she didn’t know what to do with that information. Ben knew that she didn’t like being vulnerable._

_In fact, it was very clear that Rey detested that with her every cell in her body. So Ben had to do the work here. Rey sighed, “I’m fine.”_

_“No, you’re not. You’re not sleeping. I’m worried for you and so is the rest of the group. Come back to us,” Rey was silent again, and he knew that something he was saying was getting through to her. He just needed to keep working at it. “Whatever it is that’s hurting you, whatever you’re worried about, the two of us can figure out together. You just have to come back to me, Rey.”_

*

Rey watched the projection of Ben fade right next to her, and she sighed. She knew that it was concerning that she had just disappeared and started plowing through bigger creatures by herself while the rest of the group trudged through the woods, but she really needed to blow off some steam. She realized that she might have been blowing off too much steam though, and the rest of her group would be worried about her. There was a problem though. Rey had seen signs of the First Order army the way that they were going.

The group was used to running into the First Order over and over again, but Snoke was near.

She had a vested interest in keeping them as far away from that awful man as possible.

She just had to figure out how. ‘ _Lying by omission is still lying, Rey.’_ A voice in her head said. Rey shook her head, ruffling her feathers a bit. She was tired of this all. Her head went to the thought of what she would do with her life if she managed to avoid getting killed in this war. The thought of being somewhere at peace helped soothe her mind and helped her think a little bit quicker.

She had a plan.

Now to get back to the group.


	11. Take A Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " _And when the darkness will rise, light will come to meet it._ " - **The Books of The Jedi**

When Rey got back to the campsite, there were so many questions. But the first thing that they asked her was, “Why did you leave?” and Rey really didn’t want to answer that. She was glad that Ben was there though. Because he told everyone that it was probably best that they let her sleep before they asked her any questions. She wordlessly found a spot that looked comfortable and plopped down, and nodded off to sleep after that. It was one of the only times that she had had a restful sleep.

She knew that after that, she would struggle to get such a thing.

*

**_Sixteen Years Ago_ **

****

Rey had not always been the way she was now. She started out like any other little girl who was brought into this world. She was put in dresses and told to shut up and sit down, and so she did. She did what she had to because she thought if she did that, she would deserve to be loved. That was what she was taught after all. She was four years old when she figured out that there was something different about her. Her parents were terrified of her. Every night when she would go to bed, she’d hear them talking about her. Saying that there was something dark inside her that they weren’t able to control.

At four years old, Rey learned to hate herself.

That’s when she started to act out as well. Because before, she had thought that maybe there was some sort of slim chance that her parents would love her. It was clear that they didn’t. So what was the point? What was the point of her trying to earn their approval when it was something that they would never give to her?

At five years old, her parents had shipped her off to someone else.

They called him Snoke.

He was a Lord, they said.

He would correct her behavior and made sure that she did something with her life, they said. Rey already had a bad feeling about this, but she knew that no one was going to listen to her. So even as she screamed and cried and pleaded with her parents to keep her, they told her that it was for her own good.

The last thing that Rey told her parents was she hoped they dropped dead.

They did.

After that, Rey’s childhood was a bit of a blur. She had heard once from one of her handlers at the time that that was a sign of childhood trauma. But Rey remembered the important parts. The pain. The suffering. Snoke was one of the men that took her youth from her. She remembered his laugh. Remembered how he made her think at first that he cared for her more than her parents did, and then the abuse started.

When he got older, he started to lose interest in her, and just when Rey thought she was safe, she was shipped off to a place that was far worse than what she experienced with Snoke.

*

**_Present_ **

****

“Are you ready to tell us where the hell you were when you were gone?” Poe asked Rey when she woke up. She didn’t say anything. She just sighed and sat down, because she didn’t know what else to say. She knew that she wasn’t going to tell them the truth though, it was better that they didn’t know. She didn’t have to say anything though, because before she could say anything, Ben stepped in.

Beautiful and kind and ultimately naïve, Ben Solo. “Guys, why don’t we just lay off that? She’ll tell us when she wants to,”

“I know, Ben. But we need to know why she just left like that. She can’t be doing that when we get closer to the Order.”

“I think Ben’s right,” Kaydel said, “Rey was obviously clearing a path for us and that was really useful and now she’s back with us. That’s all that matters,”

“I agree with Kaydel and Ben,” Rose said.

“I’m with Poe on this one,” Jannah said, “I’m sorry Rey but you can’t just run off like that. Where were you?” Before Ben said anything else, all of them stopped. Rey watched as a feather fell from her wing, and a little bit of blood started to drip from her nose.

“Huh,” She said, “interesting.” She got up and stumbled, “If you want to know so bad what I was doing, I was clearing a path for you guys so that you didn’t run into any trouble along the way. There’s an encampment of bandits in the usual way that we got into the border, so I’ve been leading you as far away from them as possible. But I also found a quicker way to get there in the process. So you’re welcome, anyway—”

“Why is your nose bleeding?”

She had an idea, but she didn’t want to talk about it.

“I don’t know, people get random nosebleeds sometimes. I’ll be fine though.”

“Right,”

*

Rey and Ben really talked to each other again when it was Ben’s turn to be on watch. The two of them were silent for a while and then Ben said, “What’s Snoke done that’s got you so upset?” Rey looked up in bewilderment, wondering how he had figured out that was the problem. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out that he was the problem. I was worried for a minute that it was about me, but the more I thought about it, you disappeared right after the mention of Snoke. So what has he got to do with this? Why did he make you so upset?”

“He’s a terrible person, isn’t that enough of a reason to be upset?”

“I mean, sure. But they’ve talked about horrible people before in front of you and you’ve never gotten upset about that. So what’s going on? You know that you can talk to me, I’m on your side. I care about you.” Rey sighed. There was that statement again. That he cared about her.

There was something in Rey’s head that kept telling her that that wouldn’t last forever, he would figure out how awful she really was and then he would hate her. She had already had so many dreams of him killing her that she didn’t know what else to think.

He would grow tired of her or he would have to accept his patron god’s full power, and then she would lose him and he would kill her. That was just how Rey’s luck went. Rey sighed, “Do you promise that you’re not going to tell anyone else this?” She had to hear it from his own mouth. She had to know that he would afford her the same secrecy that she did to him.

“Yes,” Ben said, “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Good,” Rey said, “well um, I know Snoke.”

Ben was silent.

She wasn’t sure what the look he was giving her meant, but she knew that it wasn’t a good one. He was wondering how in the world she could know someone like that. Especially when she had said that the first person she had ever really known was Kaydel. And he was realizing that she lied, she at least lied about one thing. But he knew that he had no ground to stand upon when it came to trying to cover things up because he thought that other people knowing the truth might endanger him. “Okay,” He said finally.

  
“He tortured me for a time,” Rey hoped that he didn’t notice the crack in her voice, but in the end the fact that he did ended up helping her.

“You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want,” Ben told her, “I don’t want to force you to relive some traumatic event that happened a while back. I just want to make sure that you’re okay.”

“Okay,”

“So are you—okay? I mean your nose was bleeding earlier, what was that about?”

“I’m fine,” She said, “I just—I think it was a side effect of me not taking care of myself like I should be. But I’m fine, I swear.”

“Good,” The two of them were quiet for a long time before Ben got a little closer to her. Rey felt the tension in her shoulders alleviate a little and sighed, she glanced behind her to make sure that there was no one else up, and when she was satisfied that there was no one watching them, she crouched down a little and the two of them kissed.

This one was small and not as involved as the first, it was just a quiet stolen moment between the two of them but it was something pure. It was something that made Rey say that she at least had one good thing in her life. She backed up and glanced down at Ben and she could see him smiling. She could see no malice when she looked at his face, and she was left wondering, did she deserve that?

Did she deserve the love that Ben gave her?

Probably not.

*

**_Five Years Ago_ **

****

She had been running for hours. She wasn’t sure how long she would have to keep running, but her wing had been clipped and she was bleeding so much. She was starting to feel dizzy. She was pretty sure that at the rate she was going, she was going to die. She could hear howling behind her and the manic screams of soldiers that were foaming at the mouth with bloodlust. She told herself that she couldn’t look back.

Looking back would mean certain doom, and she ran faster than she ever had before. The thing behind her was bigger than her. It was something that she could not face.

If she wanted to stay alive, she had to get away. She could hear the fluttering of wings and growls and roars and something scratched at her back, opening up another wound in her. She cried out, but she clawed at her attacker and got free, finally finding a cliff that she fell off of for what seemed liked forever.

When she woke up, there was a strange girl with blonde hair looking down at her. Rey yelped out in alarm, not knowing where she was or what was going on. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. It’s okay. I don’t know if you remembered what happened but there was a few wolves in my path and you stumbled in and scared them away but then you passed out. You’re really hurt, I helped get you somewhere safe and I have some stuff to help you. My name is Kaydel. What’s yours?”

Rey did not trust this girl at first.

She thought for a second that she might kill her, but then she noticed that the girl had no weapons on her at all. She was just carrying a medkit and a pouch of food. “I-I-I’m Rey,”

“Rey? That’s a pretty name,” Kaydel said, “Thank you for saving me, Rey.” She didn’t look scared of Rey. That was the first time that Rey had ever seen someone not look at her like she was some sort of terrible beast. “I don’t know what I would have done without you,” Rey tried to get up and then hissed when she realized that more than her wing was hurt. “You’re really injured, I wouldn’t do that.”

“I—I—” Rey couldn’t get her words out.

“Are you hungry?” Rey nodded, maybe the food would make her feel better. Maybe she would actually be able to think.

Kaydel stayed with Rey until she was back on her feet. And Rey could say that for the first time ever, she had a friend. She painted a different picture of her past then what actually happened, but it was better this way. Kaydel ate it all up, and she felt sorry for her. The two of them traded horror stories of childhood trauma and bonded off of that, and it started something that Rey never thought she would have.

A shred of acceptance and validation that she had never gotten from her parents before, that acceptance she didn’t get from Snoke. Rey learned how to talk to someone and although she was a little bit grumpy and irritable Kaydel still accepted her. When Rey was all healed up Kaydel asked, “So um—would you like to come with me?” Rey had no idea that was coming.

“Come with you?” Rey asked. “Where are you going?”

“I’m part of the Resistance,” Kaydel said, “you might not know who we are, but we’re planning on taking the First order down.” That was all that Rey had to hear.

That was when she started down this path.

*

**_Present_ **

****

Walking was awful. Rey kept walking, most of the time she would keep next to Ben or be by herself, but Kaydel caught up with her. The two of them walked in silence for a bit but then Kaydel said something, “Are you okay?”

“Why would you ask?” She didn’t answer the question, but rather shot back a question of her own.

“I just—I care about you, you know. And we haven’t talked a lot recently and I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay.” Kaydel was being sincere, and Rey didn’t know why. “I was really worried about you when you ran off like that,”

“I’m sorry,” Rey said, “I reacted rather rashly. I’ll admit that.” She wasn’t sure what else she was supposed to say. She knew that it was not the best thing to do—running off like that after the mention of Snoke, but she had to make sure that they weren’t going to run into him. It would be better for the rest of the group if they never had to deal with his forces, and it would definitely be better for her if they never had to deal with his forces.

“It’s okay,” Kaydel said, “it’s just that you’re my friend and I know that we haven’t talked a lot recently even though we’re doing this thing together, and I want you to know that’s my fault, but I care about you. A lot. Outside of this group I don’t really have friends, you know? So, yeah…”

“I won’t do it again,” That was probably a lie.

“So was there a reason why—”

“I just needed some time to think, the King and Snoke are terrible people, and I don’t want them getting any closer to winning this war. It would be bad for everyone,”

“Oh, yeah. I guess that you’re right,”

“Yeah,”

The two of them were quiet after that for a little, and then Kaydel said, “So uh—what’s going on with you and Ben?”

That was something that Rey wasn’t expecting to have to answer. “U-uh, what?”

Kaydel giggled, “You heard me.”

“I-um,”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“Perhaps,”

“He’s absolutely in love with you,”

“No he is not,” Rey hissed.

“Oh, he totally is.” Kaydel said. “I’m calling it right now, he’s totally in love with you.” If Rey could blush, she would have. She didn’t need this right now. “I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that either, it could be something really good for both of you all.”

“Whatever you say,” Rey said, “he is totally not in love with me.”

“We’ll see about that,”

Rey didn’t get time to retort to that, because before she could open her eyes, something big and dark and ominous swooped down from the sky.


	12. Would You Bleed For Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " _The Old Gods were thrown from the pantheon for a reason, never invoke them, lest it is your doom_..." - **Scrolls of the Traveler**

Ben wasn’t sure what happened, but when the fight broke out, it was bloody. Something dark swooped down from the heavens, and immediately Ben cast a spell of protection. The only person that it didn’t cover was Rey, who was already flying right at the thing. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but before the thing could get a hold of the rest of the group, it sunk its claws into her. She screamed in pain, but she didn’t let go of her attacker. That’s when Ben got a better look at what was attacking them.

It was a monster that looked exactly like Rey, but bigger.

It screeched and Ben watched as birds took off from their places in the trees. All of them were watching as the two of them fought in mid-air, clawing and tearing at each other. Ben knew that he had to do something, he needed to help Rey, but they kept moving so frequently that he was scared that he would accidentally hit Rey with something.

He really didn’t want to do that.

Jannah notched an arrow, “She needs to get that thing to face us.”

“Do you think you can get a good aim on that thing?”

“I don’t know,”

Ben was getting more worried by the second. Poe had gone forward and tried to distract that thing from Rey to get it away from her for just a second, but it was still trying to tear into her, finally Rey got the upper hand and stuck her sharp claws into it’s chest, turning around. Jannah’s arrow sunk into it’s neck, and Rey slammed it into the ground, growling.

It was the most feral he had ever seen her in a while.

Blood was dripping from her mouth, except it wasn’t red. It was a dark blue color that was almost black. She dug her claws deeper into the creature’s chest, until its breathing was wet and ragged. Ben winced and watched as she ripped out the monster’s heart, the bloody and meaty clumps now in her clawed hand. She threw it to the side and got off of it, and that’s when Ben saw just how much she was bleeding.

Bluish black liquid trickled from several places in her body and her movements were slow and rugged. And that’s when Rey fainted.

*

Poe heard Ben call out Rey’s name right as she fell to the ground, and he snapped out of it. All of them ran forward, Ben immediately going to Rey’s side. “Is there anyway that we can help her?” Rose asked. Kaydel was right by their side. Jannah and Poe walked over to the body of the other thing that had attacked Rey. It had only seemed to be focused on her, and not anyone else in the group. 

“Where did that thing come from?” Jannah asked. Poe’s eyes trace the tree line until he found a small portion of branches that were broken a few feet away.

“There,” He said, he pointed and Jannah looked around.

“That’s—odd,” She said, “we should’ve seen that.”

“Yeah. It just came out of nowhere,” They looked back down at the corpse of the creature that looked much like Rey. It was more twisted and skinnier, although it was bigger than her still. “It looks a lot like her, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Jannah said. “Which is weird—because I’ve never seen a creature like Rey before,”

“Neither have I,” Poe said, “maybe she’ll know something about it.”

The two of them walked over to where Ben, Kaydel, and Rose were trying to work on Rey. Ben looked panicked in a way that he had never been before, and Poe wasn’t sure why. He could heal her right? He was a cleric after all. “How’s she looking?” Jannah asked.

“Not good,” Kaydel said, “this is worse than when I first found her.” The more that Poe looked at her, the more that he could see a cause for concern.

“Well can’t you just heal her?” He asked Ben.

“I—I—” Tears were starting to come out of his eyes as he looked down at her, “I could accidentally hurt her worse.”

“What?”

“She was born of dark magic; I work in holy magic. Holy magic is the only type of magic that can fully kill her,” His hands were shaking.

“Is there a chance that she won’t be killed?”

“Maybe,”

“Then heal her!”

“Are you hearing yourself?” Ben scoffed. “I could accidentally kill her! And then where would we be?”

“Or you could make sure that she’s back on her feet faster,”

“I mean—Ben—what’s the harm in trying?” Kaydel asked. “I know that it’s risky, but it’s better than doing nothing, right?” Ben closed his eyes. Poe could tell that he was starting to get more frustrated.

“The Gods don’t like Rey,”

Everyone went silent.

“If I call upon their power, they might not—they might not respond well to that and they could kill her.”

“What?”

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier that the gods didn’t like—”

“I didn’t think I needed to okay! I thought it was pretty much implied by the fact that I’m literally a cleric and she was born of dark magic and the gods detest dark magic.”

“Not all of the Gods,” Rose said.

More silence. Poe had no idea where they were going with this. Ben looked like he had the fear of the Gods put in him when she said that, and maybe he did. “I shouldn’t—I—I shouldn’t use that God; she isn’t in the pantheon anymore for a reason.”

“Mind filling those who aren’t that religious in?”

“She’s known as Mother Talzin, and she’s an interesting god. I technically shouldn’t even know that she exists, the monks did everything to make sure that I knew nothing of her existence, they took her out of every tome and religious text that I could get my hands on, but when I started out on my holy journey, I found an abandoned temple to her. She’s a god of chaos and darkness,”

“But she’s also a god of immortality and is known to bestow healing upon those who call upon her,” Rose added.

“Right,” Ben said.

“Then do it,”

*

And there it was.

Another moral quandary that Ben faced because of this mission.

Because of Rey.

But he couldn’t let her be in pain.

He loved her.

He hated seeing her like this. So, despite the fact that he had a splitting headache right now and his head was screaming at him, Ben called upon a very, very old god. One much older than the gods that he knew of. He was crossing a line that he knew that he could not go back from, but if it meant that Rey was going to be okay, he was willing to do anything for her.

Everything around him turned black.

*

_Ben looked up to see two eyes staring at him. Red and glowing. A woman laughed, and the ground around him shook. “I see that you are in need of help, young cleric.” The eyes were everywhere. Staring into his soul. Still, Ben was as quiet and still as he was allowed to be._

_“Yes,” He said, “I am.”_

_“I have not been called upon in a very long time,” She said, “it seems that the humans have forgotten who I am, but I am glad that you have not. For that, I will not kill you. What do you want?”_

_“I need to heal a girl I love,”_

_“Why didn’t you call upon someone else in your pantheon? Surely you have other gods that could help you.”_

_“She’s a monster,” Ben said, “she needs to be healed without being killed.”_

_“Ah, a cleric that loves a creature of the dark. Now that’s not something that I think I’ve seen before, now I want to help you. You seem like the type of person I like. Breathe, cleric. Your love will be fine.”_

*

Ben felt this surge of white-hot power that he had never felt before. It was something that was almost intoxicating It felt odd. He wasn’t really sure how to explain it, because he was always used to being a conduit for the gods’ power, but there was something else there. The line of power he had gotten was Mother Talzin’s, but there was something else there.

When it was over, Rey took a deep breath in and all of the wounds she previously had began to heal in rapid time. Ben stumbled and fell over. Kaydel caught him. “What happened?” Rey asked.

“Ben healed you after you got attacked by a monster,” All of Rey’s eyes blinked and she sighed, her feathers rustling. After a minute, she got up and instead of staring at the corpse of the thing that attacked her, she stared at Ben.

“Are you okay? You’re bleeding,”


	13. A Fire In My Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " _Retribution will be swift,_ " - **Cleric of the Whills**

Ben was bleeding. Not just from his nose but from his eyes as well. He dabbed at his cheeks and pulled back to see that his fingers were covered in blood. He stumbled a little, and Rey caught him. No one else but Rey. For a minute the two of them stayed there, and then he got up and stabled himself. The bleeding stopped. “Yeah,” He said, “it’s fine.”

“You don’t usually bleed like that when you ask the gods for help,” Rey said.

“I know,” He said. He was hoping that no one would tell her what he had done for her. He didn’t want it to be that big of a deal. But he knew that it wasn’t going to take long for it to become something that it wasn’t.

‘ _That’s what happens when you ask one of Old Ones for help, you get punished. Keep that in mind,’_ Asaji elected to speak in a time where she had left him utterly alone and helpless a minute before. There were so many things that Ben wanted to say to his goddess, but he didn’t say any of them.

He knew better than that.

“Are you okay?” Poe asked. Ben wanted to roll his eyes. Poe was one of the ones that had pressured him into doing that in the first place, but he had to remind himself that he had no idea what the consequences of this were going to be.

“Yeah,” Ben said, “I’m fine. Can I have some water?”

“Yeah,” Jannah said. She handed Ben some water and he gulped down as much as he could without drinking the whole thing. Today was going to be worse than usual.

*

Rey watched Ben for a little as the two of them walked along the forest floor. The fight that she had just had with that other creature had left her winded, but she had sworn that she had been in such a worse state than she was right now. And holy magic was not something that could normally heal her as fast as that did. No one was approaching her or asking her any questions about what had just happened, which she was grateful for.

She knew that she was going to have to answer questions about this eventually, but the more time that she had to prepare for, the better.

When they finally set up camp, she knew that she was going to have to answer those questions soon. Kaydel was starting to cook the food when Poe said, “Alright, what the hell was that that happened earlier?”

“We were attacked.”

“What was the thing that we got attacked by?” He asked her.

“How am I supposed to know that?” Rey asked him.

“It looked exactly like you, Rey.” Kaydel said. “How could you not know what we were attacked by?” Rey knew that if she didn’t do something soon, she was going to be backed into a corner that she wasn’t able to get out of.

“Hey, guys. Why don’t we lay off her?” Ben asked. “She saved our lives after all,”

“It’s a simple question,” Poe said, “I thought that you were the only one of your kind.”

“I never said that I was,” Rey told him, “and you know that. I don’t know what gave you the impression that I was the only one.” She could feel Ben’s hand on her shoulder. He was obviously trying to calm her down.

Gods.

She didn’t deserve him.

“Rey, you know more than you’re telling us. Is there more like you? Is that something that we have to look out for? And why were we attacked in the first place?”

“Alright, alright!” Rey shouted. “Will you stop talking, I’ll tell you what happened?” Everyone went silent, and Rey knew that she had to minimize it as much as she could.

“They’re magically engineered soldiers for the First Order,”

“What?”

“I lied when I told you guys I had grown up in the woods all my life, because I was scared that you’d kill me. I used to be one of them, they took me from my home when I was just a kid, and they tortured my relentlessly until I became what I am today, but I always hated the First Order with a passion and I never wanted to work for them, so I escaped. And I killed a lot of people when I did, I was only fourteen when I escaped, but I was running for years, and then Kaydel found me. The new breed of soldiers they have must have better tracking abilities and somehow gotten our scent.” She looked down at her lap. She was expecting violence. She was expecting cruelty. She wasn’t telling the whole truth but she still lied, and she deserved to be punished for that. Even if she wasn’t exactly sorry for the fact that she lied in the first place.

Rey sniffed, her nerves eating at her. That’s when Poe said, “Oh. Okay,” That wasn’t the reaction that she was expecting at the slightest. Her head snapped up and she stared at him. “I mean, I understand why you lied about that.” He said. “To be honest, if I had heard that I would’ve been skeptical the first time I met you too.”

“Yeah,” Kaydel said, “and the First Order has hurt us all. Really bad. It just gives you more of a reason to want to take them down, and that’s good for our mission. It does kind of suck that you didn’t tell us, but I understand why you didn’t trust us at first.”

“I was tortured by the First Order, before I joined the Resistance.” Jannah said. “I understand your pain. And I know what it’s like to not trust people, so I get it.”

“And you’ve obviously saved all of us more than one time.” Rose said. “So it’s fine,”

“S-so, you guys are fine with it?” Rey asked. She thought there was going to be at least some repercussions, but she reminded herself that she did lie and made the situation seem a lot less severe than it actually was. It was what she had to do to keep herself alive.

“Yeah, Rey.” Poe said. “I mean, you would have to do a lot for us to not be okay with you, you know?”

“Ha, yeah.” Rey looked over at Ben. She wasn’t sure what she saw when she looked at him. Was he mad at her? She wasn’t great at reading body language. She figured that she would figure out what was going on with him later.

*

Ben wasn’t surprised that Rey had lied about where she came from. There was no other dark creature out there that looked like her that just resided in the woods around here. He had figured as much as soon as he had originally heard her origin story, but there was still a problem. Asaji had come back with the vengeance and burning passion of a thousand suns and she told him that she was still lying about her origins. Which made Ben wonder why she was lying so much about where she came from. He didn’t ask though, because he knew he was in no position to criticize her for lying. He was still harboring a secret of his own that would make them look at him differently if he knew the truth.

Still, he had another problem. That power that he had flowing through him was different than any power that he had ever used before, and he had no one to talk to about it. At least, he didn’t until everyone else was asleep but Rey and him. The two of them always started nights out in this comfortable silence. Finally, Rey was the first one to speak. “Are you okay?” She asked him.

“I don’t know,” Ben admitted after a minute of deliberation.

“You didn’t tell me everything about what happened earlier, how you healed me so quickly, why you were bleeding.” Rey said.

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t really want to talk about it,”

“Do you want to talk about it now? I can tell that it’s bothering you,” Ben nodded, he knew that even if he didn’t talk about it, he needed to tell someone what was going on with him before he lost his mind.

“It’s um—well, when I healed you I had to use the power of a God that is not in the pantheon anymore.” Rey blinked, and he wasn’t sure if her silence was a good thing or a bad thing. “And she uh—she’s one of the only gods that appreciates the art of dark magic, so she wouldn’t kill you. None of the others I could’ve called upon would have answered me unless they saw the chance to hurt you, and I really didn’t want to hurt you in anyway possible. So I had to use this God’s power instead, and it was different.”

“What did it feel like?” Rey asked.

“The power, the rush, it was different than anything else that I had ever felt. It was exhilarating, and it scared me because there was something else there that wasn’t just her power. And I don’t know what it was, but I feel awful now.”

Rey was silent for a while and then she said something.

“That other something that you felt, Ben. That was your own power. Not the gods,”


	14. I Hate You When You Leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"The power in oneself is forbidden,"_ \- **Books of the Jedi**

Ben felt his stomach flip when Rey said that. “No,” He said, “that’s not possible. I can’t have that—” He could already see Rey shaking her head, he could tell that she was getting pissed off with his opposition to this.

“It’s entirely possible, in fact it’s more than likely that you have your own power that you’ve always suppressed from being entirely realized.” Everything that Ben had ever been taught went against this. People were not supposed to draw power from anything else but the gods, and although Ben knew that people who used other types of magic were not inherently bad, it would be bad for him to have any other source of power that he could draw from. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“How would you know about that?” Ben asked. That’s when Rey went silent. “I can’t have that—it’s not supposed to be that way,”

“A lot of clerics have their own source of power that they can draw from but they never do, but when you drew from the power of an old one, you unlocked that well of power that you never knew about. It’s not a bad thing to have your own power, Ben. In fact, I think that it’s a great thing. You can be more independent without those gods of yours always in your head twenty-four-seven,” Ben knew that Rey didn’t know that what she was saying was sacrilegious, but still.

“There’s nothing wrong with having the gods guide your way,”

“I’m not saying that,” Rey was getting a little more annoyed and frustrated by the moment. “I’m just telling you that it’s not a bad thing to be independent and free. You can choose for yourself and defend yourself without having to rely on the gods,”

“Can we stop talking about this?” Ben asked. It came out a little more harsh than he intended for it to come out, and he was about to apologize when Rey sighed and leaned her head against the tree she was sitting under.

“Sure, fine.”

“I—”

“You said that you didn’t want to talk about it, so we’re not going to talk about it anymore.”

More silence.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you,” Ben said after a minute. Rey eyed him carefully and got up, electing to sit down next to him instead.

“It’s okay,” She said. He leaned over, resting his head on her. She pressed a small kiss into his forehead as he felt his eyelids droop.

*

Ben woke up next to Rey, she was still asleep, but she had maneuvered her wing to cover more of his body from the cold. No one else was up yet. Ben wished that the two of them could stay like this forever, but he knew that he needed to get up. “Did you sleep well, cleric?” Rey asked him.

“Yeah,” He said, “I didn’t have any dreams at all.”

“Well that sounds amazing,” Rey chuckled, “I wonder what that’s like.” Ben knew that Rey had bad dreams a lot of the time, but he didn’t know how often it was. He wanted to ask her, but he also didn’t want to bring up anything that was too triggering for her.

“Did you get any sleep at all?”

“No,” Rey admitted, “I was just thinking.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“About what’s going to happen to everyone when we get closer to Palpatine, I have no doubt that we’ll succeed in the end, but at what cost?”

“I don’t think that that’s something that we should be thinking about right now,”

“Okay then, do you want to talk about what we were talking about last night?” Ben’s mind flashed back to the insinuation that Rey made that he had power of his own, about how he would be stronger without it and he immediately did not want to think about it anymore. He knew that she would never understand what it was like to be a cleric, and she would never understand what it would be like have a blind devotion to something greater than all of them, so she thought that that would be a good thing. It wasn’t. At least not to Ben.

“No,” He said, “I’d rather not,”

“Okay then,” Rey sighed, standing up. “I’m going to do a routine swoop around. I’ll be back in an hour,”

*

Rey was in fact, back in an hour, even though she was tempted to just keep going. She wished that she didn’t have to think about all of the things that were going on around her. She wished that she didn’t have to think about the First Order or how the gods hated her with a burning passion. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do with all of that information.

She wasn’t sure if there was anything that she could do about that information. After all, both things were so big that there was no way that she could tackle it all by herself.

Rey pushed her thoughts to the back of her mind as she landed, the rest of the group was starting to wake up, and she immediately went to Poe to tell him the best way to head, making sure that the rest of the group would be as far away from the First Order was possible. She kept telling herself that there was no way that they would ever encounter Snoke, as long as she made sure that they didn’t get intercepted by an army, she would never had to face him again, and she could just deal with the problem at hand without the rest of her secrets spilling out.

“So there’s no problems that way?” Poe asked.

“No,” Rey said, “we should be good if we keep going that way. It’s out of the way and shielded, but we’d be able to spot an attack before it happened.”

“Okay,” Poe said, “good. We’ll do that, thank you.”

“No problem,” Rey looked back at Ben to see if he was okay. She wasn’t sure to think of what she saw. He was staring down at his hand, but as soon as Rey started to come towards him, he hid his hand in the sleeve of his shirt and smiled up at her.

“What’s going on?” He asked.

“Nothing much,” She said, “I think for once that we’re going to get to have a pretty uneventful day.”

*

They did not, in fact, get to have an uneventful day. There was something off in the air, and Ben wasn’t sure if it was just him being paranoid, but everyone seemed a lot more irritable than usual. Rey was being oddly quiet and Kaydel and Poe were arguing with each other in the background. Poe and Jannah seemed to be having some sort of disagreement as well. That’s when the fog started to roll in. “Great, Rey.” Poe said. “You said that this would be the better way to go,”

“Because it is,” Rey growled back. “What’s the matter? A bit of fog got you scared?”

“No,” He said, “I’m just saying that if there’s some sort of danger that’s going to come out and jump us, it’s going to be a lot easier for them to try and kill us.”

“Right,” Rey said, “because the last time that happened your lives were in such mortal danger.” Ben could hear the eyeroll in that statement. He was a bit scared that the argument between the two of them could start becoming more than just this little squabble. He had to do something soon, but he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

“There’s something wrong,” Rose said, “with the air.”

“Yeah.” Ben said. “I don’t know what, but it’s thicker than normal fog.” Before Rose could respond again, a ball of fire came flying straight at them.


	15. run for your life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The first known fallen cleric is debated in many historical tomes, some think it’s Anakin Skywalker, but there were others before him. But the first recorded by written word was that of cleric Phanius, otherwise known as the cleric of Ruin. He let his desire get the better of him, and in the process, he created a new form of magic. Something darker than anyone could ever imagine. Since then, every cleric has been tempted by the darkness. It takes strength to stay in the light.”_ \- **The First Text**

Rey wished that the group could just have a break, she knew that they were supposed to be heading to kill the king, and of course there would be some form of struggles that the group would face. But she would like one day where everyone was just having fun and things were lighthearted and they weren’t being attacked by creatures that spit fire from their mouths and created a foggy aura around them. She deserved a break. She wasn’t going to get a break. When the group got ambushed, Rey hadn’t been expecting it. The creature that attacked them must’ve been still enough that Rey couldn’t even hear its heart beating. Now they were blindsided by an attack and Ben was at the front.

Rey hadn’t panicked over something in a long time, but she did now, and she flew right into action. Ben hit the creature attacking them with a blast of holy energy, but there was something new in it. Rey could feel it as the spell flew past her, it sizzled with an energy that Rey knew very well. It was something that she had felt in her many time. It was what clerics liked to call dark magic, and it was alive with an energy that was much stronger than most magic that she had felt before.

The spell hit the monster and she could see it’s muscles contort and ripple in this unnatural way that was definitely not holy, Jannah notched two arrows and sent them flying into the monster’s flank, and Rose sent a spell bottle flying that hit the monster in the nose. The fire that it once emitted was now just steam coming from it’s nostrils, and that’s when Rey came in and started ripping and tearing scales and flesh from it. It whimpered and buckled under her, and just as soon as the threat had arrived, it was vanquished. Now just a hull of a creature left on the ground of the forest floor, rotting.

“Well,” Poe said, “just a little something to keep us on our toes I guess,” Ben cast another spell and the fog started to clear away. “That was interesting.”

“Yeah,” Kaydel said, “do you know that thing is?” She asked Rose.

“No,” Rose said, “It looks kind of like a manticore, but it’s way bigger and scalier.”

“I say we don’t waste time figuring out what it was,” Rey said, “and keep going.”

“Rey’s right,” Ben said, “we need to keep going. Hopefully, that attack didn’t draw anything else closer to us,”

“Alright then.” Poe said. “Let’s get going. I don’t want to be around here to figure out if something did get drawn closer.” Rey moved next to Ben. There was this look on his face that she didn’t know how to read. She just hoped that he was okay.

*

Ben could feel it creeping in his soul. Something that he didn’t want to be there. A sickness. He looked down at his hand and saw that his fingers had started to tinge an ashen greyish black, he scrubbed at the tips of his fingers with his sleeve, but it was of no use. He just hid his hand in his sleeve again and wrapped his arms around himself. “Are you cold?” Rey asked.

“Yes,” He said. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the full truth. With one motion, Rey let her wing unfold a little and protect Ben from the wind.

“Is that better?”

“Yes,” He couldn’t help but smile for a moment. Rey smiled back. Poe gave the two of them a look, but that didn’t deter Rey from walking with him like that for at least another mile before her wing started to get tired and she let it drop. That moment of peace and quiet that they had would not last long, because when they found a place to rest for the night, they had gotten about five minutes of rest when the fog started to roll in again.

“Guys,” Rose had been the one to wake everyone up, “we gotta go. One of those creatures has got to be somewhere nearby,” They had no time to debate. A fireball nearly took Kaydel’s head off by the time that they had gotten going again. They were walking in the middle of the night, which wasn’t great for everyone except Rey, who seemed more alive than ever. She was tense, her feathers bristling as she listened.

“These things are quieter than most creatures, I’m not sure that they’re entirely—natural.”

“Well, of course they’re not natural.” Kaydel said. “They threw fireballs at us.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Rey said, “I mean that I there’s something else at play. There’s some sort of magic involved. I don’t hear a heart beat when they come towards us, and I hear every creatures heartbeat in a ten mile radius to us.”

“So do you think we’re dealing with one of Snoke’s creatures,”

“It’s a possibility,” Rey said, “which means we have to stay on our toes.”

“You’re right, okay Jannah I think that we’re going to have you, Rose and I in the front since we all have range attacks, Rey, Kaydel and Ben you guys stay behind us and protect the rear.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Kaydel said. They moved into the formation that Poe ordered. Luckily, for the time being they didn’t see anymore of those creatures trying to chase them. Ben was grateful that they avoided a conflict, because he was starting to get a little more than tired. They found a high up place that was a good enough spot to rest, and there they laid down.

This time it was Rey’s turn to watch. Ben was originally going to stay up with her, but he found himself asleep against her instead.

They had about thirty minutes of sleep before the fog came back. This time thicker than before. Rey got everyone up and they all started running. This time they weren’t as lucky as they had been last time. There were two creatures ready to fight them, snarling and gnashing their long and bloody fangs at them. Rey had an instinct, and she took it. She dove to where Ben was and knocked him out of the way of a fireball, nearly getting hit full force by the creature’s tail. Rose chucked a spell at once of the monsters and it whimpered and buckled, Rey had to make a decision of who she was going to fight.

She wasn’t sure yet. She just knew she had to act. She decided to go for the eyes of the one that was nearest to Ben, sinking her claws deep into its flesh and tearing it apart. It didn’t take long for them both to go down, it was just tedious work. The group started going again, and Rey could tell that Ben was getting more and more worn down as they walked through the forest. “Get on my back,” She said.

“What?”

“Get on my back,” She told him, “I can carry you for a few miles.”

“I—”

“I know that you’re tired, Ben. You don’t have to fake it.”

“Okay,” He did end up getting on her back, tired and not sure if he could keep going at it for as long as they had been going at it. He knew that everyone was getting tired, and that if they didn’t get rest soon, something bad was going to happen. He just couldn’t wrap his head around what in this instance. He sighed, falling asleep on her back as she kept walking.

*

Rey started to think about the possibility that no matter what she did, they were going to have to go through Snoke’s army. She knew that it wouldn’t be good for any of them, but it wouldn’t be good for her in particular. If the rest of the group were told everything about her, then there was no way that she would have a home at the Resistance anymore. There was no way that she would have Ben anymore. And she supposed that it was selfish to think like that, but she didn’t care. She knew what she wanted.

She wanted to keep it.

Anyone would do whatever they had to to keep themselves safe, that’s just how humans worked.

She finally had to wake Ben up and get him down. They reached another place where they all just dropped to the ground and started laying down. Even Rey was tired by this point, and she found herself laying over Ben and closing her eyes, not caring if they would get captured by Snoke and his army or not. If they did, she’d just get them out before he was able to reveal more things about her identity than she wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal, she reassured herself before finally closing her eyes.

She deserved rest.

*

_Everything was pitch black. Ben was starting to dread sleeping more and more with each moment. He knew that there was something bad that was going to come to play, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Was he going to get punished for using the power of an old god? What was going to happen? He wasn’t sure._

_Big red eyes opened in the distance, and Ben knew exactly who it was. She chuckled, and Ben shivered. Knowing that there was a chance that he could die at any moment, he stood carefully. “You’re a very interesting cleric, you know that right? Being in love with a monster, I’ve been watching you, boy. And I think that you have potential to go further than you think that you can.”_

_“What makes you think I want that?” Ben asked. He knew that he shouldn’t have spoken out of turn, but he couldn’t stop his mouth before he said it. Luckily, Mother Talzin looked nothing more than bemused by the fact that he had actually spoken his mind. Nothing like his gods, who would punish him for saying what he was actually thinking to them._

_“Because,” the Old God said, “I unlocked that well of power that you had deep with in you, and that’s something intoxicating. Not even you could deny that, I know you’re pretty little girlfriend certainly couldn’t.”_

_“What do you mean by that?”_

_“Very soon you’re going to need me, and the other Old Gods. And when you come back for that power, you’re going to have to make a choice.”_

_“You didn’t answer my question,”_

_Red lightning struck near Ben, and he instantly recoiled, falling into a different scene. Mother Talzin was no longer with him, but he was somewhere else where he had never been before. He was in some sort of town, and the ground around him was wet, but he wasn’t sure with what. It was too dark to see what it was, but his boots made this unpleasant squelching sound as he started walking, trying to think of a way to get out of this._

_He knew that he wasn’t awake, but he had never had a dream look as real as it did before. Then he heard a familiar voice, one from a dream that he had heard before, but one that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. They were talking with someone close by, but he wasn’t sure who or what they were talking out. He turned and started walking down the alleyway, until he stopped at a shop had a sign outside that glowed in the light of a latern that said ‘Tarot and Magic Items’ on it._

_Ben went inside, and that’s when he heard the conversation. The man who was speaking had a robe on, and Ben couldn’t see his face, but it only took him a minute for him to realize who it was. The King. Palpatine. “I heard that you have a vast array of items that could be of use to me,” He said to the shopkeeper._

_“Ah yes, I do. I have what you asked for, may I ask…why you need it though?”_

_“That is not a matter that you need worry yourself with,” He said. “Just give me the book.”_

_“O-okay,” The shopkeeper said, handing over the book that the King had requested. That’s when Ben saw the cover, ‘The Art of Transforming Others’ was the title. He set down a sizeable amount of gold for the shopkeeper and left._

_And then Ben woke up._

*

When Rey woke up, she and Ben were the only ones at the campsite. Ben woke up shortly after. “What the hell—” All of their supplies had been ransacked and Ben picked up a piece of paper with a message scrawled on it that Rey couldn’t read.

“What does it say?”

Ben gulped, and Rey could feel his heart start to beat faster.

“It’s Poe’s handwriting. It just says ‘ _help. Taken.’_ ”


	16. such an almighty sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Power is intoxicating,"_ \- **Books of the Jedi Mages**

Rey wasn’t sure why she felt like she was going to throw up, especially when she had a feeling that something like this was going to happen. The only thing that they could do now was work together to figure out where they had been taken and by who. Rey also had to wonder if they were taken by Snoke and his army. The thought crossed her mind, although she didn’t understand how she and Ben had managed to sleep through all of that. Ben managed to salvage a few things and they hid their weapons in the woods, marking it with an ‘X’ so that they could come back to it later. “Everything’s going to be okay,” Ben said, and Rey didn’t believe him. But she pretended that she did. Ben cast some sort of tracking spell on one of Rose’s bracelets, and they caught a trail.

“There’s a chance that you’re going to have to stay behind,” Ben said, “you’re not exactly very stealthy.”

“ _Excuse me,”_ Rey said sarcastically, “I happen to be very stealthy.”

“ _Sure,”_ The two of them giggled a little bit and then Ben stopped. “We shouldn’t be laughing.”

“You’re right, we need to go find our friends,” Rey said, “Can you track them from the air?”

“Yes, b—”

“I’m carrying you.” Rey made sure she had a good grip on Ben and his body was flush against hers before she took off, she was careful to make sure that her claws were nowhere near his body, and that her arms were actually holding him, that way when they went up in the air, there was no way that he was going to get dropped. Ben’s heart was racing. “Relax,” She shouted, “just tell me where to go.”

He did.

It took about thirty minutes to find the right place to land, and when they did, Ben started throwing up as soon as they reached the ground. Rey waited for him to stand back up before she said, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” He said, “I just—didn’t expect that.”

“It wasn’t that high,” Rey said, “plus I had you.”

“No,” He muttered, “it was pretty high.”

“Oh well,” She said, “are you okay?”

“Yeah,” He said, “it’s cool. Let’s just get this over with.” The two of them started looking for a trail, finding the footprints of the creatures that they had encountered earlier had left, as well as horse hooves and a carriage. “How far would you reckon we travelled?”

“Far, more than a mile.”

“So they’ve been gone for a while,” Ben said, “what I don’t understand is why we weren’t taken with them. And why we didn’t wake up whenever the rest of the group was taken.”

“I’m guessing it was some sort of magic, maybe Poe was one of the only ones to get taken. We can figure it out later though, come on.” Ben followed her, this time on foot, she didn’t want to wreak too much havoc on his stomach. Plus, the spell was getting stronger, meaning that the place they were looking for was close by. It took about an hour and a half of hiking before they found the place that they were looking for. Ben cast a spell that cloaked them both so that they could watch the small encampment of army men carefully, looking for any signs that the group was there.

Rey was relieved to see that they had not yet reached Snoke.

That relief soon died when she realized that not all of the group was there. “There are two new prisoners,” She heard two guards talking to each other. Two prisoners. Not four. Meaning that the group had been split up. This was going to be a problem.

*

Rey told Ben that the groups had been split up, meaning Rose and someone else was here, but not the other two. That was going to be a problem, but Ben decided that it was something that they couldn’t deal with now. They had to formulate a plan. It was Rey that ended up coming up with one. “Since I’m not going to be able to get close, I’m going to circle the perimeter. I’ll try and take out any more creatures around here so that we have a clear way to escape. You’re going to sneak in, which means you’re going to have to lose the prayer robes.”

“Does the First Order not have any clerics at all?”

“No,” Rey looked like she would roll all of her eyes if she could, “the First Order makes fun of your kind. They think you’re all weak.”

“Do you think that?”

“I think all of them except you are weak, now come on. Let’s get back to the plan.”

“Right, right. Sorry.”

“Anyways,” Rey said, “you’re going to steal a guard’s outfit. I’ll help you get it, and when you do. The most likely thing is that Rose and whoever is here is going to be in a tent near the center of the encampment, you need to get them out without looking suspicious. Which means you’re going to have to refrain from using any holy magic whatsoever.” Ben knew that was something he was going to have to do, but he still couldn’t help but feel anxious. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,”

“Come here,” Rey said. He did. She used one long claw to gently coax his chin up. The two of them kissed and he felt a little more at rest. “You’ve got this, okay? I believe in you, you’re going to be okay.”

“Thank you, Rey. Really.”

“Once we get out of here, we’ll find the rest of the group and then we can have one big break before we go and kill the King.”

“Yeah, I can’t wait for that break.” Ben kissed her one more time, and then the two of them split up. Ben had no doubt that Rey would be able to handle herself and get all of the creatures that were surrounding the encampment. The trouble was that he really hated the thought of going into enemy territory pretending to be someone else. Ben got changed into guard gear, stuffing his prayer beads into one of the pouches on the belt that he had stolen. Rey was gone when he looked down at his hand, the black tinge at the top of his fingertips had spread, encompassing a third of all his fingers.

What was this?

Was it some sort of a sickness?

He had no idea.

He guessed that now was not the best time to have an existential crisis, so he put the gloves he had stolen on and found the best time to enter camp. It wasn’t that hard to blend into the crowd, all of the soldiers were wearing helmets that covered the majority of their face and only the injured were allowed to have them off. Ben found himself doing a few menial tasks, getting closer to people of authority so that he could hear about the new prisoners and where they would be.

After picking up a few snippets of conversation, he figured out the exact tent that Rose and Jannah were in. There was a tent near the middle of the camp, just like Rey had told him, that was a deeper saturated red than the rest of the tents that had been set up, and there was where the two of them would be. Ben moved carefully to make sure that he didn’t raise any suspicion, relieved when he found the tent. He pressed an ear to the red cloth as he heard someone speaking inside that definitely was not Rose or Jannah. It was a man that was probably about the same age as him, who spoke with a posh accent and harsh inflections on each word. “Snoke is going to be pleased that we caught you rebel scum before you managed to cross over the border. There’s definitely a lot to go over with the two of you.”

“There’s nothing to go over,” Jannah spat, “we’re not telling you anything.”

The man t-sked in disapproval, and chills went down Ben’s shoulders. He wasn’t sure why, but there was something about this man that he did not like. He started rubbing over his prayer beads, hoping for the power of a god to help him.

_‘Oh, so you want the help of a god now?’_ Asaji said in his head, ‘ _Do you really think that you can just call on us, after what you did? No. Figure this one out on your own.’_ A feeling of dread washed over Ben at her words. They were angry. Angry at him for using the power of Mother Talzin. He could hear the other goddess start to laugh in his head, as well as other voices. Much older voices than any of the gods that he had known before. Which was…odd. He wasn’t aware that there were more gods that had been thrown out of the pantheon.

Mother Talzin had told him that there was going to be a time where he would need her help, and she would be there to help him, unlike the gods that he worshipped. He tried to deny it, and instead held the sword that he had stolen. Ben realized that he had never been very proficient in holding a weapon, so he hoped that the person on the other side of that tent wouldn’t see him coming. “Here goes nothing.” He muttered to himself.

*

Rey was good at killing. Sometimes she even reveled in the matter in a way that she knew that she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help it. It was fun. The feeling of tearing creations of Snoke’s and Palpatine’s apart was something that she couldn’t help but love the idea of. She had gotten through two of them, noticing how the blood that was on her hands didn’t smell like blood. It smelled more like some sort of oil. But it was thick and blue, much like her own blood. She was lucky that she didn’t meet any more soldiers like herself along the way. Just those odd reptilian creatures that she could tear apart easily if she got the drop on them. And she did.

It had taken about an hour, and now Rey was just looking for a sign that Ben was doing okay. She hadn’t seen anything though, which made her concerned. She could smell his scent though, and she knew that he was still alive.

It seemed like eternity before something else happened. Rey was about to fall asleep when something in the middle of the camp exploded, making her jolt awake. She saw a large mushroom like cloud bloom in the middle of the camp. “What the bloody hell,” She immediately flew towards their meeting point and found Ben and Rose and Jannah there.

“What happened?” She asked.

“I caused a distraction!” Rose said, beaming and obviously proud of herself. Ben was grabbing his prayer robes.

“Are you three good?”

“Yeah,” Jannah said, “nothing too bad happened. Just hurt my ankle a bit,”

“Can you run on it?”

“Yeah,”

“Well if you decide you can’t, I’ll carry you.” Rey said.

“Thanks.”

“I’m good too, Ben was super great.”

“I’m sure he was,” Rey said, “now come on. We need to get out of here before someone comes looking for us.”

*

It seemed like they had been on the run for days again before they found the outskirts of a town far enough away that everyone could rest. Rose, Jannah, and Ben wanted to go into the town, of course Rey couldn’t though. “I can stay with you,” Ben said.

“No,” Rey said, “you haven’t been in an actual bed in a while, you deserve it.”

Ben smiled at her and left her with a kiss and a promise that they wouldn’t be too long. Then they left. Ben felt a little bad leaving her there, but she insisted that it was better that way. That was the only reason that he left with Jannah and Rose. It was colder in this town, and Ben wondered how much further away from the border they were than when they had originally started running. “It’s probably going to start snowing,” Jannah said, “We’re going to get a night’s sleep and then get a move on. We need to find the rest of the group before it gets to late.”

“You’re right,” Rose said.

“Yeah.” They were silent for a while as they found a random traveler and asked where the tavern was. He pointed them towards one, and Ben realized how much he missed being in an actual town filled with people. It was more for the beds and food than anything, but still.

“So, uh…when you guys were being abducted do you know why we didn’t wake up?”

“That was my doing,” Rose said, “I cast a spell that cloaked you from the rest of the group that attacked us because I knew that you two would be able to track us and get us out of the camp. Especially if it was a bigger camp that we’d have to escape from. I guess that in the process you didn’t wake up.”

“Oh,” He said, “I guess that makes sense.” He paused for a minute before asking another question.

“Were you guys put into the same carriage or a different one?”

“At first it was just one carriage, we were all blindfolded though. Halfway to the place, Poe and Kaydel were taken out of the carriage and taken somewhere else. We don’t know where,” Ben could only imagine the awful places that Kaydel and Poe could be, and he felt bad that they had to get so far away from the original place that they had all been taken, but he convinced himself that it was going to be okay, they were going to find them before it was too late and then everyone was going to get on their way to go kill the king.

“It’s going to be okay, do either of you have something that Poe or Kaydel touched recently?”

“I have Kaydel’s knife,” Rose said. She pulled it out of a compartment on her jacket that obviously hadn’t been searched.

“Great,” Ben said, “I’ll perform a spell in the morning to see where we can go.”

“Alright,”

It didn’t take long for them to retire once they had gotten into their two respective rooms, that’s when Ben started to go into work mode, panicking a little bit and thinking about what the gods had told him earlier. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” This feeling of dread was spreading through him, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He was still wearing the gloves that he had stolen from the guard that he had stolen a uniform off of back at the encampment.

He pulled it off and took in the appearance of his hand again. The darkness was spreading, nearly at his palm by this point, spidery tendrils coming down from the solid darkness like it was waiting to stretch out and infect more of himself. He made a shrine out of what he could and started to pray. “Patron goddess, Asaji, I pray to you. I wish to tell you that I am so, so sorry for what I did and I am here to repent to you. I’m here to repent to all of the gods in the pantheon. I know that what I did was a sin that cannot be forgiven, and I know that there’s a chance that I ruined our relationship forever. But please—I miss your guidance. I miss your voices. I need your help more than ever, please come back to me.”

He sent out this same prayer for the rest of the night, until the candles were so low that he was forced to put them out because there was no one answering. He sighed, leaning against his bed.

There was no answer.

But he wasn’t alone.

He could feel Asaji Ventress there in the back of his head. She was staring down at him in a disapproving and judging way.

Then a god spoke to him.

Not Asaji Ventress.

Not Mother Talzin.

It was Bastila Shan.

‘ _They’re not going to speak to you right now, child. They want you to learn a lesson that most clerics have to learn.’_ He felt grateful for the voice of at least one god. He knew that the gods were mad at him for what he did with Mother Talzin, but he had never thought it would feel this bad to have them look down at him in scorn. ‘ _Unfortunately the thing that they want you to do to get back in their favor is something that you are not willing to, and I don’t think that you should have to do either. But they will return to you. Just get back on your mission. Resist the temptation of the Old Gods, and I and the others will protect you.’_

“Yes, thank you. Thank you.” He said.

With that, he fell asleep.

Ben wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep before Jannah was knocking his door. He shot up in almost an instant. “Coming! Coming!” He got up and got ready and rushed out the door.

“Well, don’t you look like shit.”

“Thanks.” He said.

“Did you get the spell done?”

“I’ll do it once we get out of here.” He felt like it took too long to get out of there and finally get the spell started, but by the time they had paid and left, the weirdest thing happened. A battered and bruised Kaydel ran towards them and immediately went to hug Jannah, and Poe followed not close behind.

*

Rey hated to admit that the only reason that she didn’t sleep and instead went looking for Poe and Kaydel was because she was paranoid about what they might find out if they reached Snoke and they started telling him about her, about how she was much more than just some unlikely child that happened to be an unwilling test subject. She was up all night, and she found them, and she broke them out. She didn’t remember any of it either, she just remembered seeing red as soon as she found the group that was transporting them across snowy land. She was grateful that a snowstorm was starting to come in, delaying them as they tried to unstick the carriage that Poe and Kaydel were in.

That’s when she struck. Kaydel later told her that there was no one left alive after she was done with them. Rey didn’t see what the problem with that was. She would much rather have everyone dead at her feet then someone go back to Snoke or Palpatine and tell them that they were coming. There was a problem though, she seemed to be bleeding. By the time they were nearly back to the town, which took the last half of the night to get them back, Rey passed out.

She didn’t wake up again until everyone was standing over her, looking concerned. “What’s going on?” She groaned.

“You did something dangerous,” Ben mumbled.

“Oh yeah,” Rey mumbled, “I did. Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine, but still—” Her head was pounding and she closed her eyes. Not sure of the next time she would wake up.

Apparently it was four days before she woke up again, and a storm had started coming in. Kaydel had rented a carriage and they were all going back towards the border. Rey felt woozy, but most of all her stomach was growling. “What the hell happened?”

“You lost a lot of blood, and apparently Ben doesn’t want to use the same power he did to heal you as he did last time.”

“What?” Rey glanced to Ben, and of course he looked guilty.

“It took a lot out of me last time,” He said, “I’m not sure I can do it again.” Rey was slightly irritated, but she didn’t press on it anymore. She sat up and flexed her wings. She was about to take off and go flying when Ben said, “I don’t think you should do that.”

“What? Why?” And that’s when she noticed it. The pain in her shoulder that she hadn’t before. One of her wings felt a lot heavier than it had in the past. “ _Fuck,”_ Kaydel was there all the sudden stabilizing her.

“Your wing is sprained, it’s going to take a little while to heal.”

“Oh, Rey. Why did you come for us without back up?”

“If I had waited any longer you guys would’ve been on your way to be tortured, as someone who’s been tortured by the First Order, I didn’t want to see it happen to anyone else.” It was a partial truth. Rey could feel a lot less guilty that way.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Poe said, “I’m grateful.”

“Yeah, me too.” She said.

“Thanks,” Rey tried her best to sound reassuring, but she was worried. She was staring at Ben, who had this look in his eyes when he was staring at her. Rey didn’t know how to read it, but she knew that it wasn’t good. Everyone was silent, a slurry of snowflakes that were too dry to actually stick to the ground started to fall gently around them.

They were headed back towards the lions den.

The First Order.

Where all of this would have to come to an end.


	17. hallowed ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Monsters and gods are much similar than the Jedi Mages would like you to believe,"_ - **Books of the Neutralists**

Rey knew more of the gods than she would like to admit, but she knew a lot more about most things than she would like to admit. That was why, when Rey and Ben had originally met, she was much more than offput by the fact that there was a cleric amongst their ranks. There was definitely cynicism and disdain there, and if she was being completely honest with herself, she was afraid of him. She still was.

When Rey was younger, she used to study religious and magical texts alike, before good vision was taken from her and her hands were no longer human. She remembered everything perfectly. There was one hierarchy of gods that she knew as accepted by most clerical institutes, otherwise known as the gods of the Light Order, or Jedi in some regions.

These gods spanned a numerous number of things, and Rey had always wondered why there were so many of them. There were multiple gods of death, winter, spring, summer. There were gods of water. Each of these gods represented whatever they represented in some sort of sacred way. Rey had always found that stupid. There was too much to worship and Rey always thought that the fact that clerics and paladins alike often spent too much of their life worshipping the very beings that they would die for was dumb.

She did find myths interesting though.

So when she was fifteen and a monster, when she was forced into a position where she had to kill a paladin, she asked them to tell her a story first. This paladin was not like any other that she had met before. She had blonde hair and her cheeks were stained with black war paint that looked much like ink. A dark paladin. Her armor was black and encrusted with rubies, but for all that garnish, Rey had still bested her at her game. “Tell me a story,” Rey had told her, “and I will make your death as swift as possible.”

So, the paladin did.

“Have you heard of the Old Gods?” The paladin said. Rey told her that she had not. The paladin told her of the old gods, the one that had made the universe the way it was. Some called them Titans. Others called them monsters. Primordial terrors. These greater deities or overdeities were always there, since the dawn of time, but that did not make them invincible. “They are the only true gods,” The paladin had said, “and the ones that I worship. The New Gods are imposters, fakers.”

“But I thought that they were greater deities,”

“They are not, they have not been around long enough.”

“Interesting,” The paladin told her of how the Old Gods birthed the new ones with monsters and river spirits, and then the New Gods decided to wipe them out. And then Rey killed her. Like she requested. Since then she had learned much, much more about them. So now, when she and Ben were riding alongside each other in a carriage, and Ben seemed off, she couldn’t help but wonder.

Was this because of the Old God’s power that he had invoked?

Part of her hoped that it wasn’t. For his sake.

*

A Month Later

Wind whistled through Rey’s ears as she flew high above the trees that she had once been in a few seconds ago. The sky was a muddled grey color, and she could smell the smoke from the more industrialized middle of the First Order, even though she was hundreds of miles from even being there. Up here, she was at peace and able to see everything. Even though it was daytime, the pollution in the First Order often blocked out the sun and made it much easier to see, but she was still worried that there was something that she would miss. She had seen none of the dark soldiers that the King had been reportedly making. She wondered if they had already made there way to the border, going to attack the Rebellion and destroy everything that her friends held dear to them. ‘ _No,’_ She told herself, _‘if that had happened, we would’ve encountered more troops by now.’_

But that still begged the question, where were they? And why hadn’t they come to attack Rey yet? Clearly, she wasn’t in the normal flight pattern that they were in and she was much smaller than the newest ones, they would see her as one of the runts of the group and come to attack her. They would want to kill her. Wouldn’t they? After everything, she knew for certain that the King would want to have her head on a platter.

She found nothing though. The only positive that she could take from that was that she wouldn’t have to get in a fight with something much bigger than her, and much more terrifying. She sighed, turned, and started going back towards the campsite trying not to think of her problems anymore. As soon as she landed, she gave her report to Poe.

Poe nodded and started with his plans, Rey walked over and sat next to Ben. Things had been very touch and go with them for the past month. At first, after the rescue, the both of them weren’t really talking with each other. She didn’t know why, but he seemed like he needed his space, and Rey gave it to him. She didn’t want to lose him, so she supposed that was the best thing for the both of them. Until the night where the both of them were awake during their watch, they got into an argument. Ben told her it was dangerous to go by herself to save both Poe and Kaydel.

Rey argued that it was better that only one person got hurt instead of more people. They bickered back and forth for a little bit before Ben finally said, “Can you just please promise me that you’ll be more careful in the future?”

“Yeah,” She had lied. The two of them made up and had kissed.

Since then, there had been three more fights that were inconsequential at best, but Rey could feel something else coming. She didn’t vocalize it, but there was something that Ben was holding back in himself and she could feel it. It was affecting the both of them. “Hey,” She said, “how are you?”

“Ready to get this over with,” He admitted.

“Me too,” Rey said, “it’ll be over with soon, don’t worry. We just have to get closer and then make a plan of attack and go for it, no matter what happens.” Rey got a closer look at Ben. He looked tired. His long raven black hair was a little messier, and he had gloves over both hands, his fingers running over the prayer beads of his necklace. “Can you feel them here?” Rey asked.

“No,” Ben said, “when we crossed the border, I lost the connection completely.”

She could tell that Ben was scared. She understood that. Part of her still wanted to tell him that he wasn’t defenseless. It was clear that he had power of his own, but he refused to use that power. He thought it was going to taint his soul somehow, like hers was already tainted. If she was feeling particularly mean, she would tell him that despite his efforts to keep his soul as pure as possible, the second that the two of them kissed there was a high possibility that he lost favor with the gods.

They were too close to the King for her to say such a thing, though. “I’m sorry.” She said. He leaned his head on her shoulder, and for a minute everything felt like it was normal. Rey didn’t feel like they were going to die going into the lions’ den. She didn’t feel like either of them would end up breaking the other’s heart. She wondered how long that was going to last.

Their moment was broken up with Poe calling a meeting. They went over everything they were going to do before they got to the castle, how they were going to break in. Rey was going to be a distraction and lead sentries away while the rest of them snuck in, and that’s about all Rey heard of the plan. She was staring at the map of the palace that they had acquired from a Resistance member. Even the simple lines depicting the interior of the palace was enough to make her feel unsettled. They had a plan and a backup plan; Rey wasn’t really paying attention to it.

Her ears were ringing at this point. Her heart started beating faster than normal. She wanted to throw up, she stumbled back a little and no one noticed. After a second, she launched herself up into a tree, not wanting to talk anymore about it.

*

_It was always a memory that did her in when she slept._

_Always a memory._

_This time was no different._

_She was stuck in a prison, chained up and bloody. It was one of the few times that she wished that she could go back to Snoke, because this was much, much worse than anything she had ever dealt with. What was left of the body she once had was gone. Replaced by feathers and hard skin. She remembered her bones cracking and growing anew, and she remembered thinking that it was never going to end._

_What’s worse was his laugh._

_It was always there._

_Always haunting her._

_“I just want to go home.” She’d cry._

_“What are you talking about? You don’t have a home.” He was right. She hated it. Hated the fact that he could get under her skin like that. Rey closed her eyes and willed herself to wake up._

*

It took a week to get to the next checkpoint where they’d stock up on supplies. Ben noticed that Rey would leave for long periods of time and no one knew where she would go. At first, it was just because she was looking out for any more soldiers, but sometimes she would just take off in the middle of everything and no one had no idea where she was going. It was around this time that Ben started having more of a problem with the fact that she was being so vague with her answers. They were closer to the palace and there were more sentries looking out for all of them.

Where was she going?

He couldn’t say that he was without sin though. Ben still hadn’t told Rey about the darkness, even though she could tell there was something wrong with him. She would ask him every once and a while if he was doing okay, and he felt bad because it genuinely sounded like she cared. Ben always lied. He always said that he was fine, but of course he had never been very good at that. Whatever sickness was infecting him had almost covered his whole hand. He knew that whatever was going to happen next was bad.

He was pretty sure that the gods had either completely left him at this point or they couldn’t reach him on such unholy grounds. Rey however, seemed to be more alive with every step she took. Like something about the land around her was energizing her and making her more alert than she had been when they were in Rebellion territory.

He didn’t know what to think about that. He knew better than to say anything, though. They were getting close enough to actually being able to infiltrate the palace that he didn’t want to start another fight with Rey and have something go terribly wrong. They could talk about that when this was over with. Yes, that would be acceptable.

They would have plenty of time to actually talk after this.


	18. i found something in the woods somewhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: 
> 
> Dead Body Mention  
> Blood Mention
> 
> I don't know what else to tag but Mild suspense, nothing too gory. Just wanted to give you the courtesy of letting you know.

Rey was terrified.

She hated admitting it, but she was. They were only two weeks out from being able to sneak into the palace, and everything was going too smoothly to her liking. She had a feeling something bad was going to happen and she was constantly on edge. They were all eating now and telling stories of war and Rey wondered if the same people were going to be there by the end of this all. She wondered if she was going to be there by the end of it all.

She wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t.

It was always in the cards for her, dying young. _‘There’s always another path,’_ A voice inside her head said. It was a voice that she had never heard before. Not Snoke’s. Not Palpatine’s. It cut clean through her thoughts and made her feel like her breath was going to explode. All of a sudden she felt hotter than she had ever been in a while, despite the fact that greyish snow was falling to the ground at this very moment.

“Shit,” She muttered to herself.

“Are you okay?” Rose asked her.

“Yeah,” Rey said.

Rose eyed her for a second and then turned back to the group and started talking again. ‘ _I think you know what’s going to happen, and I think you know that if you let the cleric keep being by your side you’re going to ruin everything for him.’_

_‘Ah, so the gods are contacting others now.’_ Rey thought to herself. ‘ _How fun. Well, I don’t worship you. I never will. So, bite me.’_

Her headache got worse, but Rey bit the inside of her cheek and let the blood that started to gush in her mouth drown in out. And then Ben put his hand on her leg, smiling up at her. It took her back to the time when things were easier, and stress wasn’t going to eat the both of them alive. Rey remembered that at least for the time being, she had something to live for. Her mind was clear after that, and whatever weak connection the god who contacted her had established was gone for the moment.

“Sorry if I’ve been a little standoffish recently,” Ben told her, “I’ve just been stressed.”

“I think we all are,” Rey said, “but it’s fine. I was never mad at you for that.” Ben gave her this look that made her melt a little. His face was partially illuminated by the bonfire they were all around and he just looked so beautiful.

“I don’t deserve you,”

“You deserve more than me,” Rey said, “but I’m glad that you picked me all the same.”

*

When Ben had gone into clerical work, he wanted to help people. He knew that clerics and paladins alike always died young. People like his mother and his uncle were an outlier, when most of the time they were rectified as saints for becoming some sort of tragedy. He used to glorify the saints, envying them and wishing that he could be like them. Dying for their gods in a perfect and holy way. But something changed since he had started this journey, and now he no longer wanted that fate for himself. Everything in him felt bad for not wanting that for himself anymore.

The gods were perfect in every way and they deserved to have someone who wanted to fight for them, and Ben wanted to fight for them. But he wasn’t sure that he wanted to die for them anymore. ‘ _I’m going to Hell,’_ He thought to himself.

They were all walking through the last patch of woods they would see in a very long time, and something just felt off. It was even worse than the woods that they were constantly being attacked by manticores and the like in. “Something very bad happened here,” He said at one point.

“Yeah no shit,” Poe joked, “we’re in First Order territory, of course something bad happened.”

“It’s a burial ground,” Rey said, “a massacre happened here.” Something in Ben’s heart dropped.

These woods…

They were the woods the gods always took him to in his dreams. That’s when everyone started looking a little closer at where they were going. It didn’t take Ben long to see bodies. Most of them were old, skeletons with a dusting of polluted snow on top of them. There were arrows sticking out of trees in places, and a lot of the ground was stained a putrid reddish-brown color. “Great,” Rose said, “this is a—great place to be.”

“It’s all the more reason that we need to kill the King,” Jannah said.

“I agree,” Rey sighed and glanced around, “be on high alert. Even though I haven’t seen any sentries yet, they might be close by.”

“Good thinking,” Kaydel agreed.

Ben wished that he could feel more useful to the rest of the group, but he couldn’t. He just watched carefully, trying not to notice the bodies that were hanging in a limp doll-like fashion off in the distance. They were all together and they were all safe now. Ben had nothing to worry about.

*

The screams started in the afternoon.

The first time it happened, it was far away, and all of the group decided that although it was unnerving, it was nothing that they should be concerned about in the moment. Rey knew that there was a chance that something bad could come of them ignoring it though, as did everyone else.

They were all alert.

The screams were mixed. Some of them were human sounding, the screams of people dying in agony, others sounded like some sort of dying animal. It reminded Rey much of her own screams, but when she said something Poe said the best thing for them to do was to keep pressing forward. She didn’t try and argue. She just wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible.

They were walking for about another hour before things really started to go down, a body dropped from the sky, twitched and convulsed, and then stopped moving. Jannah and Kaydel were the first to run up to it. “They have our insignia,” That wasn’t a good sign.

“It’s probably just a prisoner of war,” Rey said, “there’s nothing we could do for them now.”

“Let me bless the body,” Ben said, “that’s the least I can do. To make sure that they cross over into the afterlife peacefully.” Everyone let Ben do what he had to do to bless the body before they went on their way again.

“Be on alert,” Rey said, “I have a feeling that we’re being watched,”

It turned out that she was right.

*

Ben wished that things had gone better than it did. But when the snow started to fall harder and the temperature dropped at a supernatural rate, he knew that there was something that was going to absolutely ruin their plans. He had no idea what, Rey seemed to stay very close to him though. It seemed as if they were in the Ice Winds regions, the wind blowing against them in a harsh manner. Jannah notched an arrow, ready for attack, but Ben doubted that it would do much in this sudden influx of bad weather.

They started walking faster, not wanting to expend much of their energy yet. It was Rose who had made the mistake of looking behind her. “Uh, guys.” She said. “We need to run.” Ben chanced a look behind him as well, and that’s when he saw it.

It wasn’t time for the forest to get as dark as it was, but when he looked behind him everything was pitch black. Rey turned too, and she sighed and rustled her feathers. “You guys go,”

“What? Rey, no! Don’t be ridiculous,”

“You’re the one being ridiculous!” She shouted at Ben. “Not everyone is going to make it there, and it’s better if you leave now.” He could hear the fear in her voice. Rey didn’t want to die. He had known that much about her.

“She’s right, Ben!” Kaydel said, “we have to go!” They yanked him away from her, running as fast as they can. Ben heard those screams that had been haunting them all day turn into a deafening roar, and he knew that there was going to be no way that Rey would survive this.

And he just abandoned her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> REMEMBER REY IS STILL ALIVE


	19. my holy hands still glow

They survived. Ben, Kaydel, Poe, Rose, and Jannah found a cave where they could wait out the oncoming forces. But at what cost? Ben couldn’t get the sound of Rey’s cries out of his head. He could’ve helped her, he could have gone back for her, he could’ve even died with her, but he didn’t. Ben stifled cries, tears spilling down his cheeks. But with his sadness and grief and oncoming surge of energy that he hadn’t felt since the last time the gods had been with him came back to him. “Ben,” Rose whispered, “don’t cry. Don’t cry. Rey wouldn’t have wanted us to cry about her death.”

“Yeah,” Poe said, “whatever she did gave us extra time to get away. She’s a hero, even if she would’ve gagged at that word.”

Kaydel was crying too but trying her best to wipe away her tears. Sometimes Ben forgot that Kaydel cared about Rey just as much as he did. “We can’t sit here and mourn her, not right now. But when this is all done and over with, I think we need to look for her body and give her a proper burial. And then—oh god—and then we go back to her favorite place at the Resistance and we have a celebration in her honor, that’s what she’d want.” Ben couldn’t refuse that.

She would want them to press on forward and keep on going. Ben knew that emotions like this made her uncomfortable. He knew that she had told him several times that she never wanted her to cry over him. ‘ _I don’t deserve it,’_ She would tell him. The gods would always whisper in his head that she didn’t.

Now they were back.

‘ _She was right,’_ Asaji hadn’t spoken to Ben in around a month and a half, and now she was back. For the first time ever, Ben wasn’t just sad or frustrated, he was angry. He didn’t vocalize the thoughts, but he had never felt this pure rage run through his body. It was a sickness that was almost intoxicating.

“We need to leave in the morning.” Ben said. “I want the King to die, slow and bloody.”

*

_Ben and Rey were sitting in a garden together, the wildflowers grew tall over their head, pixies who were too scared of Rey to actually approach them and try to steal something were floating about and chattering, and birdsong filled the air. Ben leaned his head on her shoulder and Rey said, “Do you have some obsession with being as closed to me as possible?”_

_“Do you not like it?” Ben asked._

_Rey paused, “I didn’t say that.” It was so quiet that Ben almost didn’t hear her say that. “I do, I just—it isn’t—most people want to be as far away from me as possible,”_

_“Well I’m not most people,”_

_“You used to be.”_

_“I know, and I hate that I used to judge you like that. You didn’t deserve it. But I know better now,” Rey was silent as Ben closed his eyes. The two of them stayed there, glad for that little moment of peace that they had for themselves._

_“Ben?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“You’re an optimist and everything, right?”_

_Ben chuckled a little, “Yeah. I guess I am. Why’d you ask?”_

_“What do you think is going to happen after—if we—”_

_“—When we defeat the King?”_

_“Yeah. What do you think is going to happen when we defeat the King?”_

_“Well,” Ben said, “I think that afterwards, we’re all going to go back to our homeland, and we’re going to start building towards something new.”_

_“Are you going to go back to your monastery or whatever?”_

_Ben was silent for a minute before he said, “No, I don’t think that I am.”_

_“Oh?” This seemed to have Rey intrigued, and maybe a little bit excited at the prospect that Ben wasn’t planning on living his life in monasteries and temples. “Then what are you going to do?”_

_“I’m going to be with you,” He said. It came out so effortlessly that he didn’t think second thoughts about it. He thought that the stillness from Rey might’ve been a sign that he had gone too far, but it wasn’t._

_“You still want to be with me, after this?”_

_“Of course,” Ben said, “why wouldn’t I?”_

_“I don’t know,” He knew that having conversations like these were hard for Rey, so he was unsure why she was bringing this up now. “I just—people leave. You know?”_

_“I’m not going to leave you, Rey.”_

_“You promise,”_

_“I promise.”_

_*_

Ben woke up in a cold sweat. It seemed that they had avoided the creatures that they were looking for. Ben didn’t know how though, there were so many of them that it would’ve been easy to just kill them all, even if it took a little bit of time looking for the rest of them. ‘ _They were looking for Rey,’_ Asaji said.

_‘I thought I made it clear that I wasn’t talking to you right now.’_ Ben said. It was the boldest he had ever been with one of the gods before. Nothing happened that would’ve made him regret his words. Even if she had tried to punish him, Ben wouldn’t have cared in the slightest.

Rey was dead.

There was nothing else to care about.

It was time to kill the King.

*

_Most of the time when Ben and Rey talked, it was in the dead of night when the two of them couldn’t sleep. That night was no different. Ben had just had a nightmare. He had ended up with his head in Rey’s lap, listening to the sound of cicadas and crickets’ chirp. “You want to talk about it?” Rey asked._

_“You’d think it’s stupid,” Ben said._

_“It’s about you so, I doubt that.” Ben was silent for a minute, contemplating what to do. “Or you could just not tell me.”_

_“I had a dream that something went wrong, when we went to kill the King—and you—you—”_

_“—Okay that is stupid,”_

_Rey chuckled a little bit, and Ben couldn’t figure out why. “What?”_

_“I thought you were going to say something like you saw your own death or something, I don’t know.” Ben was about to open his mouth to say something, but Rey continued. “The last person I want you to worry about is me, okay? If I die, I die. That’s just how these things go, and it wouldn’t be your fault if I did end up dying.”_

_“You can’t control if I do worry about you, Rey. I worry about you because I l—”_

_“Don’t say it,”_

_“What?”_

_“Don’t.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Just not right now, okay? If everything happens to go down the right way, then afterwards.”_

_“Okay,” Ben got really quiet. “When everything goes down the right way, I’ll say it.”_

_“You’re too optimistic, my foolish cleric.”_

_“And you’re too pessimistic, Rey.”_

_*_

They had been walking for hours. It was so cold that Ben could feel his cheeks burning. The gloomy overcast weather wasn’t helping anyone’s mood. ‘ _You’re going to need to talk to me eventually.’_ Ben started walking faster. The quicker they got there, the sooner they would get this all over with.

“Ben,” Ben could hear Kaydel talking to him, but he didn’t stop for her. It took her a second to catch up to him, but she did. “Ben, please slow down.” He did, more out of annoyance than anything. “What do you want?” He asked.

“We all need to stick together, even if you’re just a little bit further ahead something could grab you.”

“I really don’t care,”

“I know you don’t, but I do! Rey cared about you and you’re not going to die now, not after what she just sacrificed. So, stop being an asshole and get back in the group with us,” He supposed that he needed someone to yell at him. He rejoined the group and they kept walking. It wouldn’t be long before they would reformulate their plan to exclude Rey and figure out how they were going to get in the palace now. Ben didn’t want to talk about plans that didn’t include her, but he knew that it was necessary.

If Rey was here now, she’d probably laugh at the way that Ben was acting. Ben had never been able to hold his emotions in the same way that Rey did though. He had always been an emotional person. Sometimes to his own detriment. So, he couldn’t help but have the urge to cry or do something stupid out of anger. All of it was being bottled up inside in this way that was going to be unhealthy to release later. ‘ _I don’t get your attachment to this monster.’_

Ben kept walking.

When they found a place to camp, they were only two miles away from the palace. “Okay,” Poe sighed, “we’re going to take a small break and then we need to come up with a plan.”

“Right,” Rose said. Everyone else was glad to have some time to sleep before they had to go over the plan again. Everyone except Ben. He found a spot that was close enough to the group where he could see them, but he could also cry in peace. Over the years, Ben had mastered the art of crying silently. He didn’t care how depressing it was. He wasn’t sure how long he had been crying before he fell asleep.

*

_This time, Ben wasn’t in this dream. Just Rey. She was younger now, Ben could tell. It was snowing and she was shivering, and Ben’s heart ached. He wondered why he was getting shown this. He knew what happened to Rey when she was younger. He knew about the torture. She was dead now, he didn’t want to see any of this. “You need to watch, child.” Asaji Ventress’ voice echoed in his head, and he turned around, refusing to watch whatever the goddess was trying to show him._

_“No! You’ve done enough,” He walked away from her, and down the path of brambles and darkwood. “I gave you everything and you still want me to sacrifice the memory of someone that I love, it’s not going to happen.”_

_“You’re not listening,”_

_“I don’t have to listen to you! Not right now. There’s nothing here that can be of use to me.”_

_Someone laughed in the distance and Ben’s blood ran cold. He could see the red pair of eyes in the darkness of the woods open and stare at him. “Right, child.” Mother Talzin said. Ben shivered. He had never had two gods in his dreams like this before. He didn’t really know what to do. “He doesn’t need you anymore, Asaji. He’s realized how much of a fraud you are.” Ben stood still in the middle of the path. “Come closer, child. Accept your real power.”_

_“Come to me, accept your patronage. Once you do, all of your worry will go away. That sickness that’s creeping up your hand, I can cure that as well. Mother Talzin will tear you apart and make it your game, the power she holds is not enough for a mortal body to be able to control. You will die,”_

_“Don’t listen to her. You know that the new gods lie.”_

_Ben was at an impasse._

_He didn’t know what to do._

*

Rose was the one that ended shaking Ben awake. “Hey, wake up.” She said. “We need to plan.”

“Right,” Ben said, “sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Rose said, “we’re already all tired.”

“Yeah,”

Ben got up, joining the rest of the group as they sat under the cover of a large oak tree. “Okay,” Poe said, “new plan. We’re going to have to be a lot stealthier than we originally were going to be.” Poe started forming a plan, Rose and Jannah would be the one to stage the distraction. Rose was good with explosives. Jannah and her would make a rig that Jannah would detonate and they would run into the tunnel system below the palace to meet back up with them. Ben, Kaydel and Poe would sneak in, disguised as guards.

First, they would have to disable the Kingsguard, which Ben would do with the aide of some holy magic. Ben didn’t say anything about the possibility that he might not have Asaji Ventress and the other gods to aide him at this time. He knew that there was a very real chance that he would have to reach out to Mother Talzin for power, it was better that the rest of the group didn’t have to worry about it. Once the Kingsguard was disabled, they would strike the King at a time when he was alone in his throne room, and then take the tunnels back out.

It sounded like a solid enough plan.

No one asked any questions.

Everyone just accepted that this was what was going to happen now. “We’re going to be alright,” Jannah said, “we have to be. For the future of every nation, and for Rey’s memory.”

“For Rey’s memory,” Everyone said.

“We’re going to rest a few more hours, but then we’ll sneak in just before curfew. Got it?”

“Got it,” Everyone said in unison.

Ben was not looking forward to this.

*

_Ben stood at the center of a fork in the road. “Your metaphors aren’t getting any more subtle,” He called out to whatever god was listening to him. Down one path was pure, white, flame. It called for him to purge out the shadows. To become pure. Down the other path was darkness and rain. It called for him to accept his darkness. It was the only way that he could become as powerful as he should be. After all, he did have his own power within him. “I don’t want any of this,” Ben said._

_He just wanted Rey._

_The silhouette of a woman appeared on the side of the light. Asaji Ventress. “You can’t always get what you want, cleric.”_

_“If you follow down my path,” Mother Talzin interjected, but it wasn’t just her voice, “then I will give you the power to have whatever you want. To bring her back.”_

_“Wanting is wrong,”_

_“Wanting is human,”_

_Ben couldn’t stand this. He felt like he was being torn apart._

_“You have to choose Ben.” They both said. “You have to choose.”_

_They were right._

_Before Ben could utter a word, he woke up._


	20. sometimes before it gets better the darkness gets bigger

_When Rey was little, she used to tell the passage of time by who came to torture her. She had no windows in the cell that she was forced into. Only a door that offered a small amount of light. Every time that door opened, at least half a day had passed. She rarely got food that wasn’t rotten or still alive, she learned to kill it herself, and she would have to grovel for even that._

_When Rey was a little older, she used to tell the passage of time by the claw marks she would etch into her cell. She would go through a day of hexing and corporal punishment, knowing that she was going to survive. For one reason. To spite the people that put her in there._

_When Rey broke out of that prison, she was still there mentally. No matter how hard she fought._

_She was always there._

_There was no breaking out of that prison._

*

The plan was going well. The explosion that was set off was big enough to do a significant amount of damage to the palace without being too suspicious, and it didn’t take long for Rose and Jannah to meet up with the rest of the group. “You doing okay?” Poe asked.

“Yeah,” Rose said. Ben cast a simple cloaking spell that didn’t require much holy energy at all to fulfill and the group set about making sure that everyone was heading towards their right position. Ben’s mind was racing and his heart was pounding. The palace was a lot bigger than he had thought it was going to be, with multiple floors and corridors and hallways that looked almost exactly the same. He trusted Poe though. Poe had read the maps multiple times and he said that the sources he had were credible, so Ben trusted that.

They blended in with multiple rounds of knights and Ben thought that everything was going to be okay. He really did. There was this overwhelming feeling that something was going to go wrong in the back of his head though. At first, he thought that it was just his paranoia.

It would be understandable considering the circumstances.

But it wasn’t just his paranoia.

It started slow, the creeping sensation. The feeling that even though they joined the ranks of other knights in the same uniform, people knew who they were. Like there was something staring straight through the cloaking spell that Ben had put over all of them and waiting for the right moment to strike. And then, just as they were following a group to what Poe said would be the King’s throne room, guards walked past them and a wall appeared out of nowhere.

Everyone stopped, stunned for the moment. “What just happened?” Kaydel asked.

“What the fuck?”

“Ben, do something about it!”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A gravelly old voice said. They turned slowly to see a group of creatures much like Rey, but more twisted and taller flocking either side of a shriveled looking man in a General’s uniform. He had no eyes. Just grey skin that stretched over both. “I would like to say congratulations, for getting this far without getting killed, but—it seems that you’re at a roadblock. You’re all going to come with me.”

It was Snoke.

Ben knew that there was no way that they were going to get out of it, but he was tempted to lunge right for Snoke’s throat and tear it out with his own bare hands. He didn’t though. ‘ _Even if you’re not going to listen to me anymore, wait to show your hand. Right now is not the time.’_ The is the only time that he was planning on listening to her. The group was apprehended, but no one was hurt.

No one said anything as the future seemed bleak and they were dragged into a part of the tunnel system that Ben hadn’t seen on any map before. He could hear the sounds of screams though and soon he was able to tell that this looked a lot like something he had seen in his dreams before, the deeper they were, the less light there was. They were all split up, no one giving the First Order the satisfaction of seeing them scared as they were thrown into different cells. Ben was roughly thrown into a cell and the door was locked behind him.

For a second, he was able to see the inside of it. The claw marks that were etched ever so carefully along the wall. There must’ve been thousands of them. Old, brittle feathers, and blood stains that must’ve been years old made Ben’s stomach churn a little. And then the door closed, and he couldn’t see anything. It was pitch black inside. Things could be worse.

They could all be dead right now.

Ben was too tired to freak out about everything going on right now though. He just had to go with it. For a second, he thought about yelling out to his friends to see if he could figure out where they were, but he didn’t know what the repercussions for acting out were. He didn’t know anything about the prison system in the First Order, but from the little he had heard from Rey about it, he had assumed that it was nothing good.

The only thing that he could do now was wait.

*

Ben wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had seen light, but when the door opened and light flooded in, he had to shut his eyes. “The King will see you and the rest of your little friends now, get up.” They grabbed at him roughly and started tugging him back up and towards the King’s throne room. He didn’t see any of the rest of the group in the process. They probably avoided taking the rest of them the same way, so they didn’t have a chance to band together and fight back against their captors.

The longer he was dragged through the palace, the more he felt as if the palace they were in was from some sort of fairy tale that mother’s told their children so they would behave before they went to bed. This was the place where little kids would be taken to after being abducted, and subsequently eaten by the beast.

Ben tried his best to keep calm as he smelled the pungent, coppery, aroma of blood coming from nearby. He hoped to anyone that was listening that the smell wasn’t because someone had killed the rest of the group. It seemed like forever when they finally reached the throne room, and when they did, he was relieved when he saw the rest of the group, chained and disoriented, but unharmed in the throne room. The room was lined with guards, and Ben was glad that none of the dark creatures that were much like Rey weren’t anywhere to be seen.

Ben glanced up, staring at the empty gold throne that was waiting to be filled. It took a minute before the King entered the room. Ben wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he saw him. Much like Snoke, the man was grey and old, but there was this aura around him that made Ben shiver. The dark magic that radiated off this man made him want to start throwing up. Ben could see Poe struggling against his chains, as if getting out right now and lunging at him would actually be a good plan of attack. “I would say that it’s a pleasure to meet you all but given the circumstances I think that would be rather inappropriate.” He reminded Ben of a snake, waiting to open it’s maw as wide as it can and strike it’s opponent.

Ben’s hands were bound, so he couldn’t get to his prayer beads and call upon a god. But he felt something there. That something that Mother Talzin had brought out of him, but he had been so good about not using it. Not giving into that darkness and letting it destroy him. He wasn’t going to use it now. He didn’t even know if he could access that power without risking the lives of everyone in the room, and he didn’t want anyone else to die. “I had a feeling that the Resistance was going to send a team of people after me, but I guess that I assumed the team that they assembled wouldn’t look so downtrodden and puny.” King Palpatine sat down in the golden throne in front of him. There was a moment of silence. “What? Is not one of you going to talk?”

“You’re not going to get away with your crimes against other nations!” It was always Poe. Even when saying something was a detriment to him. It was always him.

Palpatine laughed. It was dark and gravelly, and Ben hated him more than anything. “Why don’t you just get to the point?” He asked morosely. “You have us here, kill us.” Ben had nothing else to live for. There was no point to drag this out any longer. This was where he was going to die.

Palpatine t-sked, obviously amused with his eagerness to get this over with as soon as possible. “Straight to the point, I like that.” He said.

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I think that you’re about to. I propose a deal, information for your lives. Sure, you’ll live out the rest of your days in jail, but it’s the easy way out and none of you will have to go through a horrid amount of torture.”

“Why do you think that anyone would ever take that deal?” Rose spat at him. She pulled at her chains like she was trying to will them off her. That wasn’t going to work. The guards holding them were persistent.

“Have it your way. Take the blonde’s hand.” Kaydel’s eyes widened, but she did not scream. She didn’t bargain for him to stop and spare her from the pain that she was about to experience, she just grunted as she was pushed and held down. “You know, I was told that you were a stubborn group of people. But I wasn’t sure I believed it when I was told just how stubborn you were.” One of the guards was holding their axe, ready to go when he made the word.

“Wait!” Ben shouted. Palpatine nodded and the guard stood back.

“Ben no—”

“Who told you that?”

“A little bird, you may know her. Seven feet tall, covered in black feathers, many eyes.”

Ben’s stomach dropped.

He had to be lying. He was lying right? He was evil, this was what he did. He lied and he lied and he lied and he was lying. “Ah, I see that I have your attention.”

“There’s no way,” Jannah muttered, “she’s dead. He’s just trying to lie to you.”

Ben felt like his blood was going to boil over. There was ringing in his ears and his hands were shaking. “I’m afraid that I’m not. I can reunite you with her if you want, she talked about you a lot after all. When she wasn’t screaming from the torture.”

“That’s it, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Ben jutted his shoulders back into the guards behind him, sending them to the ground as he ran forward. He was stopped in his tracks by an invisible force. He felt like a hand was tightening around his throat, and then he was forced back down, the hand off his throat. “Temper, temper. What happened to the old days when an old man could talk in a civil manner before he utterly obliterated his enemies.” Ben’s throat felt sore. He couldn’t talk. “Anyways, that’s besides the point? Are you sure that you want her back now? After all it came to my attention that she didn’t tell any of you the truth about where she was from,”

“Yes she did,” Kaydel said, “she was one of your soldiers, but she escaped your mind washing.”

“ _Just_ one of my soldiers? My, she sure sold herself short. After all, Rey is the first of her kind.” Ben’s stomach sank.

“No—”

“I’m not done. Don’t interrupt me.” His voice was stern and cold. “Good. Not only is she the first of her kind, but she happens to be descended from a long line of royals, unfortunately not my line but that’s besides the point. She’s my ward, and third in line for the throne.”

“You’re lying!”

“He’s not.”

Ben’s blood ran cold.

Rey swooped from out of the darkness, landing in front of them and swaying unsteadily. All of her feathers were matted and there were several places that it had been apparent that she had been stabbed. Her voice was lower than usual. “And there’s never been quite a better soldier than Rey, even as she defied my order, she always knows the perfect time to give in and comply. That’s one of the things that makes the new soldiers I am building unstoppable. This is how we will restore order, now, come here child.”

“Rey, don’t listen to him. We can work through this—” Ben’s voice was the only one who was begging for her to not listen. They could get through this. They could still do their mission.

“They didn’t even mourn you when you sacrificed for them,”

“Yes! We did! Please, Rey. I know that he’s got his hooks in you, but we can get out of this together, alive.” Rey turned around, her back to Ben. The rest of the group was silent. Probably too in shock to do or say anything. Kaydel made a noise like she wanted to speak but couldn’t. “Rey, please.”

‘ _Give it a rest, we warned you this was going to happen since the beginning. This was of your own doing.’_ Rey walked up to Palpatine.

“Bow,”

She did.

“As reward for the information you gave me, I will reward you something that you have been longing for most of your adult life.” She was really doing this. She was really going to betray them. Ben couldn’t help but start to cry, still begging for her to stop this. She had the power to stop this. “Your humanity,” He placed his hands on her head, and time seemed to stop as darkness was ripped out from within her. Ben watched her change, he heard her scream, and heard the screams of another guard as the dark magic moved and infected him.

When it was done, she was human.


	21. i sink into you like water

There was always a catch to deals.

Rey knew that.

Her life. A chance at feeling in control of her body again. It came at a price. A price that she paid. Breaking Ben’s heart. Costing people their life.

She wasn’t sorry. Even when she heard Ben plead with her to not go this way, she made her choice. She knew that what was between them would never end good, so she chose the best thing. To cut her losses where she could. She’d get away from Palpatine again eventually, but right now she just needed to survive. When she was back in a body that looked human to her, it felt weird. She felt liberated. Her shoulders no longer ached from the weight of her wings and she could feel her magic returning to her.

It had been locked away once she had been turned into a monster. “Rey—”

“You keep trying to plead with her as if she is going to come to your side. Face it, boy. You lost. The First Order is going to win the war, after all we outnumber the Resistance. Your kingdom stands no chance, now there’s only one matter left. What am I to do with the rest of you? I think that I’ll leave your fate up to Rey, now that she’s back here. It will be a test of her faith.” Rey turned, staring at the faces of people who she called friends.

She wasn’t sorry.

She wasn’t.

*

_Rey had tasted blood many times by the time that she was eleven years old. So, when she met Palpatine for the first time, she knew that she was going to taste it again. By that time, she had learned how to judge men within seconds. There was this dead look in his eyes when he first cast his eyes upon her, and she knew that this man would be the death of her. Whether it be physically or emotionally, it would be him. “You’re going to be a disrespectful little brat, aren’t you?” Were the first words that he said to her._

_It was something that she had heard Snoke say before._

_Something that small men liked to say to put down women. She had experienced the pain and torture of her lifetime when she was with Snoke. He broke her and changed her physically. Palpatine was the one that broke her mentally. “You will be perfect, one day.” His laugh chilled her to the very bone. “And you will serve a purpose for the New Order.”_

*

Ben wasn’t sure if he was silent out of shock or what, but when the dark magic had been ripped from her, she was transformed into someone new. And for some reason, Ben was sure that he had seen her before. Maybe in a dream that had been locked away in the back of his memory. Her dark brown hair was long and wild, and she wore an inky black robe that covered almost everything. When she turned around her eyes were still pitch black. Remnants of the black magic that Ben wasn’t sure were able to come out, even with the most powerful dark sorcerer’s help.

She was smaller.

But she didn’t look less threatening.

“It will be a test of her faith,”

“Rey, please don’t—” Kaydel finally tried to speak out, but her voice fell flat.

“Well,” Rey sighed, “I don’t see the point in killing all of them if I’m being honest. Kaydel, Jannah, Rose and Poe are not a threat to you if you put them in the prisons.” She pointed to Ben.

“He is though,”

“Alright, you heard her.” Palpatine said, “Guards—”

The guards picked Ben up, and if Ben was being honest, for a second, he was scared for his life. Then Rey said, “Wait!”

The guards stopped before anything had happened, and for a second, he hoped that this was all a ruse, that Rey was going to suddenly kill the King after she had gotten what she wanted. It would make sense, but that wasn’t what she did. “I want to play with him a little first, take him to the chess room. Leave him there.”

“Rey—Rey—”

“You betrayed us—”

“Yeah I know,”

“How could you do this to any of your friends!” Poe shouted.

“Was I really any of your friends? Or was I just your pet?”

“We mourned you!”

“I don’t believe you, now get them out of my sight. They’re causing me a headache.” Ben couldn’t believe what was happening. He was dragged away but didn’t fight back. It was still so hard to wrap his head around everything that was going on right now, his hands were cuffed behind his back and he was roughly tugged upwards as they started to lead him away. His head was spinning, he couldn’t tell where he was going and at a certain point, Ben blacked out.

When he woke up, he was chained to a wall in a room that barely had any light in it. From what he could see, there were large statues on a checkered like board. They were in the style of chess pieces but didn’t look like the normal chess pieces that he had seen before. And then he realized what it was. On one side, the light marble statues were his gods. The other side were dark sorcerers much like Palpatine and others. The Sith. The Dark side. The old Gods.

Ben wondered what the purpose of this room was. “Hello?” He called out. “Is there anyone out here?” There was no one.

‘ _I told you so,’_ Asaji Ventress said, ‘ _and so did everyone else. She is a monster, and she was going to be your undoing, and guess where you are now. The number of clerics that have died here is astronomical.’_

“You don’t need to remind me,” He muttered. He really didn’t need that smugness in his life.

“If you’re in here, Rey. You can come out.”

There was no answer.

Ben was alone.

He wasn’t sure how long that he’d be able to stay like this.

‘ _I can give you the power to get out of here and destroy the King,’_ Mother Talzin said.

_‘As can I,’_ Asaji said, _‘but one will lead you to the heavens, the other will be your destruction. When you can reach your prayer beads, accept your patronage once and for all. And we can end this.’_ Before he could reply back to her, light flooded the room. He looked up to see Rey with a torch in one hand and a dagger in the other. She spent some time lighting other torches. Ben assumed more for his courtesy than her own, and then put the other torch on the wall.

“You here to finish me off, sweetheart?”

“Don’t be so eager,” Rey said, “it makes it less fun.”

Ben paused, wondering why he was even dignifying this conversation right now. Rey seemed to pull a chair out of nowhere, straddling the back of the chair and perching her head on her shoulders. “What happened between us?” Ben said.

“What was always going to happen,” Rey shrugged, “we were driven apart.”

“The last thing I knew, you saved our lives. Was that all just an act?”

“Would it make you feel better if I said that it was? Would it make me easier to stop? Would it make it easier for you to accept your patronage so you could rip my heart out?” Her voice was so cold and distant. Ben almost wondered if she was even there at all, or if her brain was in an entirely different place.

“Whatever Palpatine did, we can get past this and we can move forward. I know that you don’t think that his way is right.”

*

_“Ah, Rey. It’s been awhile since we last saw you,” Rey was remnants of what she had been before. Her heart was barely beating, and she couldn’t even open her mouth without blood pouring out of it. “How’ve you been?” She didn’t say anything, but she knew that Palpatine wasn’t planning on her answering anyways. “Did you really think that you would be able to escape me forever?” She had hoped that she would be able to escape him for long enough to kill him first._

_But it should’ve always been evident to her that was never going to happen._

_She was never going to escape that prison that had been built in her mind a long time ago. Snoke and Palpatine built the cage, they reinforced the walls, but they gave her the illusion of being free. Even if it was just for a little bit. She felt an invisible hand grabbing her, lifting her into the air and restricting her air pipe. “You’re going to pay for everything that you’ve done.”_

_“You’re really going to torture me again?” She spluttered out, “Do you think that can get anything productive out of me after everything you’ve done?”_

_That’s when Snoke stepped forward. “You see, since you’ve been gone things have changed a little. I don’t just specialize in breaking people physically anymore. But mentally too. And you’ll be all mine to play with.” Her blood ran cold. “I’ve long awaited the time in which I would get to do this again, so thank you for coming back and giving me the pleasure of returning my favorite play thing.”_

*

“Hmm, you’re right about that.” Rey said. She shrugged, toying with the dagger she had in her hand. “But he is very persuasive, and he did offer me something that I wanted. My life. Despite everything that’s gone on—and I know that it’s selfish—I quite appreciate being alive. And I was ready to die for you I had convinced myself that you actually cared about me, but here’s the thing. I was never made for love.”

“Rey—”

“I’m unlovable, I always have been. Everything else in between is just toxicity and possession. So, it’s better that it happen like this.”

“That what happen like this?”

“Our end,” Rey knew that Ben was wanting to say something, to make a plea for his life, but one thing had been made very clear to her in the time that Palpatine had tortured her. If she didn’t do what he wanted her to right now, Ben’s death would be a lot more painful than anything that she could inflict upon him.

“What happened to you? We weren’t gone for very long,”

“You think you’re the only cleric around here Ben, he’s got several in the dungeons. I thought you were smarter than this. Put two and two together. I was tortured. Figured I’d cut my losses and get it to stop.”

“What information about the Resistance did you give away?” Rey was tempted to tell him that it was virtually nothing, just enough to ruin their plans and kill a few Resistance encampments. But then if she told him that, he would think there was still a chance that this would end happily.

“You know originally, Snoke wanted to do experiments on you. The same way he experimented on me,” She changed the subject. Rey could still hear his heartbeat. It never got any quieter after Palpatine took away the monstrous form she just so happened to be in. She watched Ben gulp. “Relax, he’s not going to. So, I know I betrayed you and I unfortunately have to kill you but, I do see this as a mercy. You’ll get a last meal and a nice place to lie down before I do it. And I will miss you, if that helps any.”

“If it’s a mercy, why do you have that knife?”

“I couldn’t come in here and just talk to you, that’d look suspicious, wouldn’t it? I know how paranoid Snoke and Palpatine are. They’d think I was conspiring against them or something like that. I don’t know, they always bring up convoluted accusations like that.”

“Why are you even working for them then?” Rey got up and the chair disappeared, she got closer to Ben, dagger in hand.

“Because they were always going to win,”

*

Rey didn’t like hurting Ben. It brought her no joy whatsoever, but she knew that people would be watching her. She left a few superficial cuts on him, enough to turn his disguise red and make him squirm. Meanwhile he was staring at her the whole time, and Rey knew what he was thinking. He was thinking, ‘ _Where did we go wrong?’_ and of course Rey didn’t have an answer for him. She turned around and started to leave. “If you walk out that door, I’m never going to forgive you,” He called.

“I’m counting on it!” Rey said, and she left. She needed to get out of there as fast as she could. When the door shut behind her, Snoke was waiting.

“Ah, Rey. Just the person I was looking for,”

“I can’t tell if you’re trying to tell a joke or not, you’re not funny.”

“Now, now…just because you can walk the Kingdom freely doesn’t mean that you can talk to me like that.”

“I’m not apologizing,” Apologizing about things, being sorry, that was for the weak. She had learned that a long time ago. “Anyways, what do you want?”

“I was just going to check in on you and the prisoner, what exactly did you want to do to him?”

“I just like playing with my food before I finish the job,” Rey shrugged, “what else would it be?”

“I was just making sure that you’re not prolonging your time, keeping everyone alive, so they can still go ahead and kill the King. After all, you shouldn’t strike either of us for fools. We know that you hate both of us,” Rey rolled her eyes. She was really tired of this. She was ready to lay down in a bed for the first time in years. She missed being able to do that.

“Oh, please. I hate everyone. You aren’t special.”

“Well,” He said, “I’m glad you’re not thinking about any type of rebellion. You know what happens to everyone if you do that,”

“Yes, I’m well aware. Now, if you don’t have anything else to do, I’m going to go take a nap.” She left Snoke behind her, feeling more and more tired by the time that she got to her chambers. She barely made it to her bed before she passed out.

*

_This was a new dream. Something that she had never experienced before. Rey was in the middle of an ocean, and she felt like she was about to drown. “Rey!” She heard someone call out. Her blood froze as she looked out for the voice. “Rey!” A storm was brewing not far off. “Rey!” This is when she figured out who was calling her. The voice was her own. She had no idea why she would be calling out for herself, but she was. A large wave overtook her, and she was completely submerged in water._

_She couldn’t breathe._

_She was going to die._

_She turned, looking for a way to get out of here. Her heart was accelerating. She turned again; her movements made sluggish by the water. When she opened her eyes, she saw herself. Well, the monstrous version of herself. She stared right back at Rey like she was disappointed, and then outstretched her arm, wrapping her long taloned hands around Rey’s neck._

_Rey couldn’t breathe._

_This was how she died._

_*_

Rey woke up screaming. It had been a long time since she had last done that. Her whole body felt exhausted. Rey wiped the sweat from her face and tried not to feel light-headed. She knew that she wasn’t successful. Rey likened what she was feeling right now to the same ways he felt when she lost a lot of blood. Which was concerning, but something that she wasn’t going to deal with until she touched her neck and drew back blood. This time, it was a little bit muddier than crimson red, but it was still red.

“Fuck this,” She muttered to herself. She forced herself to get up and go to the mirror. It had been a long time since she had looked at herself in the mirror. The last time she knew that she was ugly as all sin, and no longer human. Now she felt like she had her face back, but something was very wrong. Her vision fractured for a minute, and a patch of eyes opened up at her neck. Rey grimaced in pain and doubled over.

She knew that Palpatine had not removed all the magic in her, but this was going to be a problem and she wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. As soon as the eyes opened, they closed and her neck as no longer bleeding. Rey breathed in a sigh of relief. Part of her wanted to confront Palpatine and ask him what he did to her, but the other part of her knew that there was no use in that.

This was not Palpatine’s doing.

This was her own. When she took her humanity back and sacrificed her friends, something happened, and the monstrous part of her stayed tangled with the human part of her. “You really had to go and destroy yourself again, didn’t you?” She laughed at her own reflection in the mirror. She just wanted this to be over. Maybe after all her friends were dead and gone she’d submerge herself in a lake and never come back up. She’d finally be free of Snoke and Palpatine.

Oblivion.

A bliss that she had often fantasized about. A guard knocked at the door but didn’t open it. Rey was grateful that. “What do you want?”

“The prisoner was calling for you,”

“Which one?”

“The cleric,”

“Why should he call for me?”

“He said that he had information about the Resistance that he wanted to tell in exchange for his freedom, but he’d only tell you.” Rey’s blood ran cold. Ben was waiting for her. It was a trap.

Perhaps her oblivion would come faster than she thought.


	22. pray you won't pull me under

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence

This is what it was going to come down to. Ben did not want to do this, but Rey had left him no choice in the matter. It had taken him all night to work a hand out of the cuffs that he had been restrained in. His skin was raw and chafed and it burned, but he couldn’t care about that right now. He touched his prayer beads again, and he saw a choice. Asaji Ventress or Mother Talzin. Neither one a choice he wanted to make. He knew that if he chose Asaji Ventress, she’d kill Rey in a heartbeat, but she’d help him save his friends. If he chose Mother Talzin, she’d spare Rey but what would happen in the wake of all the destruction that happened. He didn’t want Rey to die, but if he ended up killing more people he would never be able to forgive himself for that. So, he picked his patron goddess.

_‘I thought you were never going to let me all the way in,’_ She said. He could feel her inside of him, guiding him more intensely than anything that he had ever felt before. But his disappointment, the darkness that was creeping up his hand did not go away. He could feel it there still, like an infection that was not going to go away. He knew that vanquishing that dark magic was something that could not be done immediately by home.

Ben watched as his hands glowed and lit up the almost pitch black room around him. He had to wait for her. Something told him that she would know that something bad was coming though. And she would be ready. This was not going to be an easy fight.

She knew what was coming for her.

He told himself that they could have avoided this. She could have avoided this if she hadn’t betrayed them. But another part asked him, ‘ _Did she really have a choice?’._ He knew that Rey was tired. He knew that she was hurting, and she was doing what she thought was right and humane.

‘ _What she did was not humane. She lied to everyone, including you.’_ Asaji Ventress was right. Rey had to go down.

*

When the door opened, five human prisoners filed in that weren’t anyone that Ben knew, but still it caused him to pause. Rey filed in after them, her dagger at the throat of one of them. The rest of them stood there, they looked like they were drugged. Ben wasn’t sure what to do. “What do you want?”

“Are you really that scared of me, Rey? You can’t face me by yourself,”

“Really, Ben? Look at you, you’re not by yourself, you took the cowards way out.” She had a point there.

‘ _What are you waiting for? Attack!’_

There were innocents there. Ben wasn’t going to. “You really had so little faith in yourself that you asked a goddess that’s wanted my head on a pike since the beginning for help? You didn’t need her or Mother Talzin to kill me, you could’ve done it all on your own. But no, instead you chose her help so when you’re done with everything you can wipe your hands free of sin and say that it was her fault that I died.”

“I think we’re well past it being anyone’s fault but your own, Rey. You’re going to die, now let these people go.”

“Hmm, no.”

That’s when Ben lost control of his body.

He wished that he could say that he blacked out and didn’t see anything that happened first, but that didn’t happen. His whole body started glowing, and the room was too bright to see anything. He heard someone scream and then he ran out of the room, Rey had run out and into the hallway, and right when Asaji used his hand to throw a punch at her. She stood her ground and caught it. She smirked and said, “I’m not that easy to kill, told you, should’ve done it without her.”

His other hand swung at her and she caught that too, the glowing holy energy coming from his fists was sizzling against her skin. It must’ve been searing pain, but she barely even flinched. Ben’s knee came up and connected with her stomach, it was the only thing that caught her off balance. Another blast of holy energy was thrown, it caught with her shoulder.

Ben noticed something.

She hadn’t attacked him yet.

He started feeling worse and worse about what was going to happen. If Asaji Ventress killed her and she didn’t attack in return the whole time, Ben wouldn’t be able to live with himself. He was already sure that he wasn’t going to be able to live with himself. A guard charged at him. He moved out of the way, grabbing the man’s sword from him and catching him in a weakness in his armor, causing him to go down. He was there, waiting.

“Your play,” Asaji said.

Rey’s eyes widened for a second, and if Ben hadn’t been staring at her he wouldn’t have caught it. Was she scared? Darkness swirled around Rey, and she pulled out a long ebony sword with dark red energy crackling around it. This time she didn’t go on the defense. She attacked first. Something told Ben that even Asaji Ventress was a little surprised by the strength of her swing.

Ben could tell that she had barely any training with a blade, but for what she didn’t have in training, she made up for in pure ferocity. It reminded him of when she was still a monster, feral and strong. This was how she won fights, so she obviously wasn’t going to use any type of different strategy now. Their blades caught and they struggled for a second. “You know, I know it’s not you fighting me, Ben. Because you hate blades, so tell Asaji to suck my—”

He swept is foot under hers and almost sent her tumbling, but she caught a statue before she made it all the way down and pushed it at him, it gave her some time to run. “Guards!” She called. “I need more guards!” More guards were coming towards them.

Ben didn’t know if he was going to be able to sustain this fight. There was way too many of them, Rey sunk back behind the crowd of guards and the few monsters that were running down the hallway. Ben got ready to fight his way out of this. He couldn’t see her anymore, but he knew that she wouldn’t be gone for wrong. Rey wanted leave for long.

She would be around, waiting.

*

Rey wasn’t out of this fight just yet, she was just waiting for Ben to get tired out. She perched up against the wall and took in a deep breath, hearing the screams of bodies dropping. That let her knew that Ben wasn’t in control of his body right now. When Ben attacked, he hated aiming to kill unless it was absolutely necessary. Rey closed her eyes, took a deep breath in, and then a deep breath out. She knew that she had to face him again, but she still a little bit of time he caught up to her.

Not much though. She looked at her hands, they still felt hot from the holy energy that had been radiating off of Ben. “This fucking sucks,” She muttered to herself. She knew that she did this to herself. She knew that in a matter of time, she would have to face Ben. He would probably kill her and she would get that oblivion that she deserved. Something was keeping her going though, making her scared to die. She hated it. She hated that she was scared to die, she knew that she deserved it, but the truth was she was selfish.

She didn’t want to die.

She would have to fight Ben back, but she knew that she couldn’t kill him. She had another idea though. One that he would never forgive her for, but one that would work all the same. Rey sighed and got back up. What could go wrong?

Everything.

But she didn’t have a choice anymore.

*

Ben knew what Rey was doing. She was trying to tire him out. Or at least, tire his vessel out so Asaji Ventress would have to leave it. But he wasn’t quite to that area yet. There were a bunch of dead bodies around him, and although he hated that he was the cause of that, he knew that the ends justified the means in this case. ‘ _Wow, you’re actually getting smarter.’_ Asaji Ventress hissed at him.

Ben didn’t say anything to her. He couldn’t. He just watched as he came forward in the hallway, Rey was waiting there for him. There was a healthy amount of distance between the two of them. He wanted to reach out to her and say that they could stop this now, but he knew that wasn’t the truth.

Both of them would keep going until they destroyed each other.

That’s exactly how it had happened in all of Ben’s dreams, and that’s what was going to happen now. “Surrender,” Rey raised her eyebrow and started giggling.

“You really think I’m scared of you? A god using a scared boy who can’t even access his own power as a meat suit? No, I think you both underestimate me way too much.” Ben charged at Rey with his sword. Rey stood there, blade by her side. Ben wished that he could unsee this, prepared for the worst to happen. But it didn’t. Instead Rey caught him completely off guard, darkness surrounded them, and the monster was back.

She was bigger than ever. Ben felt a sharp pain slice into his shoulder, and he gasped and stumbled backwards. Rey was cackling, sounding dark and deranged as she grabbed Ben by the shirt and lifted him up.

He couldn’t believe it.

She was about to win, wasn’t she?

He wasn’t sure where she was taking him until they got there. There was a chapel on the far end of the palace, they crashed through the ceiling and Ben landed right on altar. It wasn’t as hard as Rey could’ve made it though, it was almost like she was trying her best to gently place it there. Before Asaji Ventress could react, darkness stifled him, and Ben was scared that he was about to die. What happened instead felt so much worse.

A long scar was slashed across his face, and he felt the goddess leave his body.


	23. feels just like a curse

Rey didn’t know what she was thinking. She was pretty sure that she had fully gone insane at this point, but she had dumped Ben in the woods far enough away from the castle to make it look like he had actually been killed. She hadn’t been able to go all the way through with it, but she had broken his prayer necklace and threw the beads far away. He wouldn’t be a threat to her anymore, especially since he couldn’t just accept his power. By the time she got back to the castle, she had shifted back to her regular form. She had no idea what was going on with her, or how long she would be able to keep it up.

She knew that things were not going to stay stable yet.

But she knew that if she tried to escape in the shape that she was in, she’d surely get caught again and die. She immediately went to Palpatine, ready to lie. It was what she was good at. She had blood all over her anyways. She entered the throne room and before he could yell at her for just barging in, he caught the blood all over her. “I killed the cleric; I’m going to go take a nap.”

She walked away before he could say anything.

*

Ben woke up covered by broken tree branches. Leaves covering most of his body and snow on part of his face. He moved a little bit, and the snow fell off his face, and he laid back down with a thud. Excruciating pain shot through his face and shoulder. It was the worst type of pain that he had ever experienced in his life. He reached out for the gods but couldn’t find them. There was no one there to help him, he was by himself.

After a while, he told himself that he was never going to be able to survive if he just laid there by himself and waited for someone to help him. No one was coming. He eventually managed to get up, feeling dizzy and awful. He had no idea how long he had been out, all he knew was that he wasn’t bleeding anymore and he couldn’t feel the gods with him. He had no idea where his prayer necklace was and he wondered to himself if Rey had meant for him to die.

Something told him that she hadn’t. He coughed, wincing when it brought his head more pain. This was not what he thought was going to happen when he had originally joined the rest of the group. He wanted adventure and to help people, but lately he was sure that he had even really helped anyone. Maybe the rest of the group would just be better if he disappeared. He didn’t know. Ben wandered around the woods for a while, not really sure where he was going.

All that he knew was that he was scared out of his mind and not really sure what to do about it.

*

_Rey had the same dream over and over again for three nights, the other version of her was hunting her down, trying to kill her. Rey was trying as hard as she could to get as far away from her as possible, but she never could. She always died. Tonight, was different though. She was sitting across from her at a table, she couldn’t get up, but neither could the other version of Rey. “You’re going to listen to me tonight,” She said, “or you’re going to die.”_

_“Why my mind continues to pester me like this I’ll never know,” Rey sighed, she knew what was going on. She hated what she had done to Ben. She had gone too far. She was past the chance of redemption, and she knew that she was not fighting for the right team. What was worse is that she didn’t know where the people that she used to call friends were, she knew that they would never forgive her for what she did. If they were still alive._

_“You know exactly why, you chose wrong and it’ll cost you everything.”_

_“I didn’t have anything in the first place,”_

_“You had a boy who loved you, and you had friends.”_

_“None of them loved me,”_

_“I’m sure that you know that’s not true,” The other version of her stared at her pointedly, as if what she had just said was the stupidest thing that she had ever said in her life. It might’ve been. “They all loved you so much, and you betrayed them!”_

_“And what choice did I have?” She shouted. It had been a while since she had cried, but now that was all that she felt like doing. “Am I really supposed to suffer more and sacrifice everything and more?”_

_“I—”_

_“You know what, I can’t do this anymore.” Rey woke up._

*

Rey resisted the urge to scream as soon as she woke up, she was sweating and even though she had taken a bath the day before, there was still blood stained on her hands. It was something that she was probably never going to get out. Something possessed Rey to get dressed, putting a cloak over her head and heading down into the tunnels. Several times her vision splintered, and she felt a spike of pain as a patch of eyes opened somewhere on her body. She worked through it, telling herself that she deserved every minute of pain that she was putting herself through as she got closer and closer to the prison system.

She knew that none of them were going to want to see her.

She didn’t care.

She was going to see them. “State your business,” One of the guards stopped her from continuing on into the tunnel system underneath the palace.

“I’m bored, is that enough business for you?” She rolled her eyes. It didn’t take her long to find the group. They were on one of the only quiet blocks, all bunched up in one cell. She wondered why the hell the guards had done that when she had specifically told them not to. Putting them in the same cell would lead to them getting out faster.

She knew that they were going to get out.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the traitor.”

“Oh relax,” she said as she started walking up to her cell, “it’s not like you didn’t see that coming.”

“I trusted you,” Rose said.

“I did too,” Poe added.

Kaydel was silent. She looked like she had been crying for a long time, and for some reason Rey couldn’t look her in the eyes. She was reminded that she didn’t just hurt Ben when she betrayed everyone. She hurt the rest of them too. “Why are you here anyway?” Jannah practically spat at her.

The truth was that she had no idea why she had come down here in the first place. All of these people hated her. They never loved her and this was just the proof that she needed. She sighed, tempted to just walk away right now, but instead she just sat on the floor across from them and said, “I want to talk.”

*

Ben was on his own and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He had found his way into a small cave and made a fire for shelter. He knew that he had to get his bearings, he had to get back to the palace and get his friends, but he had no idea where he was and the gods had not come back to him as he started recovering. He had no guidance. He was completely lost. He shivered, thinking of the atrocities that could be happening right now while Ben was away.

He had no way to help.

Tears fell down Ben’s cheeks, and he couldn’t stop himself from crying this time. What had Rey done to him? When she had forced Asaji Ventress out of his body, had she cut his connection to the gods completely? Did she know that was going to happen when she had done that? Did she even know that it was possible to force a god out of a cleric’s body? Ben was realizing that there was so much about magic and about Rey that he had never owned.

Now he just felt stupid. He leaned back against the cave wall and closed his eyes.

He needed to rest, desperately so. In the morning, he would try and find a way back to the palace. He was going to be no use to anyone in the state he was in right now. “Fuck,” Ben sighed, his shoulders relaxed, feeling too tired to muster any energy to do anything else.

*

_“You seriously want to talk, after everything you’ve done?” Ben was next to Rey, watching her talk to the rest of the group that was now behind bars. “Seriously, Rey? You betrayed us,”_

_“You’re seriously mad about that after I kept you guys from being experimented on by Snoke, or killed? I don’t know, to me this is a much better alternative than death.”_

_“Stop trying to justify betraying us,” Rose said, “you did something wrong and hurtful, and you lied over and over and over again. And you’re going to kill Ben,”_

_“No I’m n—you know what? Whatever, I don’t need this. I just wanted to make sure you guys are actually getting fed and it looks like you are so I’m leaving. Have fun in your prison cell,” With that, she turned around and left. Ben guessed that he had no choice but to follow her._

_Ben was walking right beside Rey in the palace. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but there was something wrong with Rey. She looked disturbed, not that she wasn’t already. The both of them ended up in some larger chambers, there was nothing much in the room except a large bed and a dresser with a mirror. As soon as the door closed, Rey moved to the bed and stuck her face in a pillow. Ben heard her stifle a scream, and then her body was wracked with wet, harsh sobs. For a second Ben wondered if she knew that he was there and that he could see her, if she was acting for him to feel sorry for her. But then he realized that she wasn’t acting._

_She was crying._

_Ben wanted to reach out to her, despite everything that she had done. Because despite the fact that she had hurt him, he still loved her. He still wished that none of this to happen. It seemed like she cried for hours before it was all over, and she turned around, taking in deep breaths and trying to calm down. It took a few minutes before she was breathing normally again. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”_

_She pushed herself up into a sitting position, for a second Ben was sure that she was staring right at him, but when she got up and tore the mirror off the wall, Ben realized that she was looking at herself._ _The glass shattered into fragments on the floor. “There,” She said, “that’s better.”_


	24. i don't want to hurt your heart my dear, but if i have to cut you i will

Ben had made it a significant distance despite the fact that he was so tired he felt like he could barely stand. He had managed to find the path that their group had taken to get to the palace, but he kept to the shadows as best he could. At least this time he didn’t think that there was anyone following him. Finally, he started looking for shelter before the sun started to come down. He knew that it wouldn’t be good for him if he tried to stay out past dark.

Especially when he was defenseless.

Ben’s hands moved up to where his necklace of prayer beads was supposed to be, forgetting that it wasn’t there for a second. He touched his bare neck and was met with this sadness and fear that he hated feeling. When the gods talked to him, everything was easy.

He had some sort of direction; he knew when he was doing something wrong or right. But now they weren’t here, and Ben was terrified out of his mind at what might happen because of that. “Right now is not the right time to be scared,” He told himself. He thought about what Rey and Mother Talzin said to him about having a power of his own that he could access.

At the time, he had refused to believe it. It was something that he had considered sacrilegious, and it made him so much more scared about what that meant for him and his future. He was still terrified, but if both of them were right about that, he needed to learn how to use it now, and that way when he got back to the palace, he’d be able to fight. He remembered what Rey had said, about him being able to fight back without the power of a god on his side.

Maybe she wasn’t lying about that.

For a second, Ben wondered why she would tell him something like that. Especially if she thought that he was going to use that against her. He soon got his answer.

*

_“It’s quite easy, breaking someone mentally with magic.” Snoke told Rey. She wasn’t looking at him, he grabbed her face with his gnarled hand and Rey looked like she was going to vomit. She didn’t. He was holding this long object that tapered off into a needle point with runes on it that glowed an ominous looking orange color. “I know that I’ve tortured you quite extensively, Rey. So you’re going to be used to some pain, but you’re not ready for pain like this.”_

_Snoke aimed the object he was holding to one of her eyes, Ben closed his eyes as Rey started screaming._

_The scene changed and Rey was human, she was in some long and extensive library with books piled around her and she was reading nonstop. She looked up and around and then straight at Ben, she rolled her eyes. Did she see him? “If you’re wondering what the answer to the question is, it’s no. But I can tell you’re there, you have an aura.”_

_“Can you hear me?”_

_“Barely,” Her voice was low and, in a whisper, she said, “go away Ben.” She looked down at her books, trying her best to cover her face._

_“Why didn’t you kill me?”_

_“I could ask you the same question,”_

_“I know what Snoke did to you now, I understood why you took that deal. You can stop this though; you can tell me where everyone is. That way when I get back to the palace, I can break us all out of there and take you as prisoner, and you’ll be away from them again Rey. This can work, you don’t have to be the bad guy,”_

_“I thought that by severing your connection with the gods you would stop this astral projection stuff, guess I was wrong.”_

_“Rey,”_

_She was about to say something when she looked past him and to guards that had walked into the library. She immediately shut her mouth after that. He could still hear what she was thinking though. She was debating actually telling him, but besides that her thoughts were blocked from him. “Rey, please let me in. I don’t want us to be enemies, you said it yourself, we were never supposed to be that.”_

_Rey dropped her book and wiped at some tears before getting up, she swayed for a second and Ben watched as a patch of eyes sprouted from her neck and she coughed out some blood. Whatever spell that Palpatine had used had not worked all the way. It took a second to clear up, but then Rey stood straight and walked away._

_Away from Ben._

*

“Guards said that they heard a ruckus in your room yesterday,” Palpatine said as soon as Rey reported to him in the afternoon, “what was that about? Hope that you’re not throwing a tantrum over the fact that I required you to kill your little cleric.” Rey had to resist the urge to roll her eyes into the back of her head. She forgot just how annoying Palpatine was when she had been far away from him. She had to tell herself that some day she would be far away from him again, and that she would never have to endure whatever crap he wanted to throw at her again today. She just needed to get through this.

“No,” She said, “I wasn’t.”

“Then what were you doing?”

“Breaking things is satisfying,” Rey shrugged, “I don’t know what other answer you want me to give you.” She really had no other explanation for anything happening to her, especially when she couldn’t really explain what was happening to her to herself. Palpatine looked at her for a second and then obviously lost interest in whatever it was the guards had told him she had done last night.

She gave him an overall report of things that were going on and then was allowed to leave after that. There wasn’t much else that she could do today, she didn’t know what else to do but go back to her room and fall asleep, hoping that some time during her slumber, someone would successfully manage to kill her so she didn’t have to deal with whatever was going on around her.

*

_Rey was sure that she was out to get herself. There was no other explanation for whatever fuckery was going on at the moment. This must be why she and Ben were sharing dreams again. “You know, I thought that this was going to end.” She said._

_“You really that eager to get rid of me,”_

_“No,” Rey said, “just tired of you trying to redeem me when I’ve told you hundred of times, over and over again that I’m not going to help you, okay? I already risked my life not killing you, I don’t want to risk it anymore.”_

_“You see, I think that you know that by risking your life saving me, you’re going to end up helping me again. Face it, Rey. You’re not a bad person, you can help.”_

_“Why are you still trying to save me?”_

_“I—what?”_

_“It’s a fair question.” Rey said. “I’ve been horrible to you, I know that I certainly wouldn’t save someone if they treated me the way that I’ve treated you. And yet here you are, after I nearly killed you and severed your connection to the gods, trying to convince me that I’m some sort of savior that will help you finish this quest that was impossible to finish successfully in the first place. When are you going to realize that it’s not going to work, and even if it did we wouldn’t win. Heroes never win outside of anything except childish fairytales and I think that it’s high time you grow up and accept that.”_

_“You can’t say that when you’ve never given it a chance,”_

_Rey didn’t say anything after that._

*

When Ben woke up, his head was pounding. Of course, the only person that he could think about was Rey. He thought about everything he saw in the dream he had the night before. He knew that he should continue to be mad at Rey, but he just couldn’t do it. Maybe that was his weakness, no matter what Rey did to him, he wasn’t mad at her. Instead he was mad at the circumstances that Rey had been put in, and part of him wondered, if Snoke and Palpatine were gone, what would she be like? She wouldn’t have to keep the same mentality as a child soldier. Maybe she would be happy.

Maybe the two of them could go off somewhere and rekindle everything that they had between them and be happy. Ben sighed, knowing that this shouldn’t be what they were thinking about right now. He forced himself to get up and walk around, he prayed for an hour, trying to get connected to the gods again, but he was truly disconnected from all of them.

He had no idea what to do. After realizing that there was nothing that he could do to get reconnected with the Gods, he decided that the best thing to do was meditate.

He had his own power.

He was not useless.

He just had to figure out how to unlock it. He didn’t care what he had to do to get it at this point, or what it would do to him, he just knew that the rest of the world was counting on him to kill the King. He had to do this, and he couldn’t fail at it. Not again.

*

Rey wasn’t used to crying as often as she had been here. She sighed, knowing that she was acting weak. There was something wrong with her and she shouldn’t let Ben Solo make her feel sad, but it was more than that. Because he was right. Rey was terrified. She was more scared than she had ever let on. That was why she had lied about who she was when Kaydel first found her, that’s why she lied again when she met the rest of the Resistance, that’s when she lied again when she had a chance to tell the entire truth.

Rey shivered, thinking of Kaydel.

She never even looked her in the eyes when she was down in the prison cells the last time. She supposed that she deserved that. She did betray all of them. But she was so sure that they hated her, so it wouldn’t have come as a surprise. The look that she saw on her face said something different, it told Rey that was wrong about that, even though she really didn’t want to admit that.

“Fuck,” She sniffed, trying her best to keep her tears as quiet as possible. She knew that there was always people watching here, so crying was dangerous. If Palpatine thought that she was having regrets, there would be consequences and then Rey would be in a shape that was worse than dead.

Rey longed for a time where she was nowhere near them, where Snoke and Palpatine weren’t a thing that she had to worry about. A time where she was just focused on the fact that Ben was right there next to her, and they were both safe and didn’t care about anything else other than each other. But the truth was that time never existed.

Palpatine and Snoke had always been Rey’s worst fears.

As long as they were out there, Rey would continue to build this mental prison around herself that she couldn’t get out of. One where she believed that no one really cared about her and that she was never safe. There was no other way to escape them. Tears started to pour down Rey’s face even harder than they had before. Rey bit the inside of her cheek until she could taste blood, trying her best to stifle the sound of herself crying until she could calm herself down.

When she finally did, she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.

*

_She was back to arguing with herself. She guessed that was just the norm these days. This time she was in a field, much like the one that she had first had a dream about the cleric in. This time the other version of her was there, amongst tons and tons of dead bodies. Among the dead bodies were her friends, all of their faces frozen in fear. Rey didn’t want to look at that. “You don’t want to look at that and still you imprison your friends and near killed the one person that showed you love and affection?”_

_“You never know when to shut up, do you?”_

_“I’m just trying to make you look in on yourself Rey, show you that what you’re doing is wrong.”_

_“Yeah, well you’ve always been pretty good at making me feel like a shitty person but if you’re expecting me to help everyone that’s not going to happen. When I have tried to help, I just end up getting hurt. I’m done with that.”_

_“So what? You’re seriously justifying betraying your friends by saying you helped them a few times but got hurt each time? This isn’t a fairytale! You’re not going to get a reward for doing the right thing, you just need to do the right thing because it’s right, and for no other reason than that. Maybe then you can finally get rid of whatever part of monstrous of you is still there,” She knew that what she was telling her was true. She knew that she should be doing the right thing._

_That didn’t change the fact that the consequences for doing the right thing scared her._

_“What’s holding you back from ending Palpatine and Snoke? I thought that was something that we wanted?”_

_“Fine! I’m scared, okay! I’m terrified of everything. I don’t have nothing to lose like I used to, my friends could die and so could Ben. And I’m scared of what happens after the two of them die. I have no idea who I am without them and if they die, I-I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I’m probably just going to screw everything up again. I always screw everything up, that’s what I do!”_

_That seemed to be the answer that she was looking before, because that monster left her crying in that field where she had first met Ben. The field that was now a war-torn battlefield where all her friends were dead. The scene changed a little, and Ben was standing in front of her. But it wasn’t really Ben._

_She guessed that this was the future, if she didn’t change what was happening. He had a knife out, and he looked ready to kill. “I gave you all the chances in the world, and look what you did.” Smoke billowed from the ashen wasteland, occasionally an ember popped up from the ground and tried to burn Rey’s skin. Rey knew that she had a choice of what she was going to do next._

_She would have to choose. "I would get off your high horse, cleric." She told him. "I'm on the same side as you,"_

*

When Rey woke up, she knew what she had to do.

She just wasn’t sure that she had the strength to do it.


	25. there's more love in a dead man's arms

Meditating was always one of Ben’s strong suits, but now it was different. He didn’t already know that there was going to be someone there to help him. He just knew that he had to find this so-called power that Rey and Mother Talzin had mentioned to him, and then he could help his friends. Part of him was scared that when Rey had severed his connection to the gods, she had also gotten rid of his power. But he told himself that even though he was scared, he couldn’t let himself believe that. He was going to find the power within himself, and he was going to use it to help his friends.

He had to.

Ben closed his eyes.

He was going to do this.

He had to.

*

_Looking deep within oneself wasn’t something that anyone liked to do, but it was something that clerics did daily. That’s why it didn’t take Ben long to drift to the place in the Veil where he needed to be. He was brought to memories of his childhood. Memories that he never wanted to remember but was fated to anyways._

_How he had told himself as a teenager that he would never take Asaji Ventress’ full power because he didn’t want to help people. How for a lot of his life he had been inactive because he was afraid of someone getting hurt. He was paralyzed of the notion that he could do something like that._

_He told himself that he couldn’t be paralyzed by fear and guilt now, and he let that go._

*

Rey had to figure out a plan and she had to figure it out fast. She knew that soon, Palpatine was going to mobilize troops and they would be on their way to the Resistance, he would also probably figure out that Rey had lied about where the most important encampments were at that time. She needed to break her friends out of prison and get Snoke out of the way without arousing suspicion for Palpatine, but she knew that if she actively showed that she was helping them then she would be putting all of them in danger. She had an idea, but it required a spell book from the library, and she couldn’t take that back to her room without questions getting asked. Her first objective was to rip out the spell and steal the ingredients without getting caught. ‘ _You have to be clever; you can’t be caught. This calls for subtlety, not violence.’_ She thought to herself.

She had never been good at that, but now she was going to have to. She knew the schedule of the guards and the shift changes that came with it. There were four throughout the day that gave her a fifteen-minute window to get to the library without being watched and scrutinized by someone. The library was huge, and if she didn’t know where the book that she needed was, she would never get the spell in time before someone saw her. But she did. She could get to it quick if she ran, rip out the spell and be back at her room.

Stealing the ingredients would be a little trickier for her. Rey told herself that she could do it.

She just had to be careful.

Most of Rey’s day was spent in her room, thinking of a plan. And then her mind wondered to Ben. He was probably getting closer to the palace, and he would come barging in on his own thinking that she wasn’t going to help him. She was considering contacting Ben in a dream and telling him that she was on his side, but she decided against it. She knew that it would make things a little more difficult, but if Ben wasn’t willing to attack her when he came back here than that would be suspicious, and she would be under much more scrutiny than she needed to be under.

So for now, Ben would have to remain her enemy.

It wasn’t like she was used to it. They had started out hating each other, and he ended up hating her again. She was trying to be hopeful though and tell herself that if things went well, she would have a chance to mend things with Ben again. She would have a chance to be happy.

She could do this.

She just had to have faith in herself.

*

At one’s lowest point, rising from the ashes seems impossible. But Ben did it all the same. There was new energy that he felt in him. He no longer felt paralyzed by the fear that he was going to hurt someone, because he knew that sometimes in war it was necessary to do just that, or more people are going to get hurt.

Ben knew that he had to approach the palace at a different angle this time, and it was going to be hard to figure out which place was the best to enter. He ultimately decided to wing it, which wasn’t the smartest decision. But considering the fact that they had a whole plan and still had no idea what they were doing until the moment they were captured, Ben decided that wasn’t the worst thing in the worst. “I can do this,” He told himself, “I can do this.” Maybe if he said it enough times to himself, he would believe it.

He would go in as the sun started to rise up. Those creatures couldn’t see as good as they were supposed to when it got brighter outside, Ben would use that to his advantage.

*

“I can do this,” Rey said, “I can do this.” It took her a little longer to gather all the ingredients she needed for the right spell. Mostly due to the fact that Snoke was interrupting her and it was really getting on her nerves, but she didn’t let that irritation mess her up. She knew that she couldn’t afford to mess up like she had so many times before, so she didn’t. Once she got all of the ingredients, she hid them under a floor panel and went to dinner, pretending like nothing was wrong.

Rey had always been great at lying, so when Palpatine suspected nothing from her she was relieved. She immediately went back to her room and locked the door behind her, clutching the side of her head when her vision splintered and a patch of eyes opened up in the middle of her forehead. It took her a second for her vision to clear and for her to feel normal again.

The spell would take the rest of the night to set up. Rey just hoped that Ben would get here by the time that everything was set up so everyone could have a second chance at everything. During the middle of her mixing ingredients together for her spell the thought popped into her head of what was going to happen if Snoke and Palpatine found out that it was her who had helped them. How much worse it was going to be for her than things already were.

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, and then with shaking hands still continued. She knew that there was a chance that she was going to die. But the thing was that Ben was right. He was always right. She needed to give this a chance.

Maybe for once she would be able to do something good.

And even if she did die, she could at least say that in the end she tried.

She could feel power surging throughout her in a way that she hadn’t felt it before. This didn’t make her feel like she was going to fall into oblivion. This was something else. It was strong and it was steady and it wasn’t completely dark, and whatever power within her that she had used made the spell work and sustained it. Rey could now possess the body of whatever guard that she wanted to.

It took her a minute to figure out who she was going to target but as soon as the shift change happened and the guards started heading towards the prisons, she took her chance. She was going to get her friends out. No matter what it took.


	26. i don't want to hurt your heart my dear, but if i have to cut you i will

Ben hadn’t even bothered to try and disguised himself again. He had just decided to steal a sword and hope for the best, so far he’d only gotten into a scuffle with three guards. All of them now dead in a ditch and covered by some leaves, Ben decided that he wasn’t going to waste his powers on humans, he would just have to be careful. Ben had gotten good at sneaking around since he had joined this group, and he had made his way up through the sewers and to the lower grounds. He heard the screams of people being tortured and hoped that none of them were his friends, he had to be careful looking through each room and hoping that he could find them. So far they were nowhere to be found, but he wasn’t going to give up yet. He knew that they were somewhere around here. He kept ignoring the metallic taste of blood, kept ignoring the fact that there was a very real chance that they might be dead.

He had faith, even if he could no longer reach the gods. He still felt like not everything that happened in the world was bad. He would be able to find them. After a while, he was able to listen in on some guards talking about them, and able to find which block they were on, luckily they were closest to the entrance back into the castle. He took out those guards too and dragged them away, ready to get his friends. He knew that he was so closed to finding them, and no he had confirmation that they were alive. He passed by the screams of tons of people that he wished that he could help, if he had time he would go back to every cell and let them out, but he couldn’t do that right now. He had full faith that he was going to see his friends again.

Until he got to the cell.

None of them were there, and a guard laid dead on the floor.

*

Kaydel was used to people leaving her. When she was younger, she was born at a Resistance encampment. Both of her parents were proud of their jobs working for their military, so Kaydel grew up thinking that every time there was some emergency or mission, her parents might not be coming back to her. And eventually, that’s exactly what happened.

Her parents were caught in an explosion, and they hadn’t had enough medics to get to them in time before they bled out. So, Kaydel studied field medicine, even though that wasn’t what she wanted to do. She was much better at fighting and sneaking into places, but she found that it was still useful. She liked having some ability to help people, even if her skills were limited at best. It was how she met Rey, and maybe she should’ve known not to make friends with a monster. But she did. All of her other friends had died in war and she was shy, she knew a few other people but Rose, Poe, and Jannah had all been acquaintances at that time and nothing more. So, she immediately gravitated to Rey. This broken and sad girl that reminded her much of herself.

It didn’t take Rey long to gravitate to her too, or so they thought. When Kaydel led Rey back to a Resistance encampment, Rey was frightened. “Are you sure that they’re not going to be scared of me?” She had said. If she was honest, she had no idea. And she wished that she could just calm all of her fears, but she couldn’t. So she just told her that even if they were, Kaydel would make them understand. That didn’t ease much of her worry. She hid up in the trees and Kaydel tried to get her to come down but she guessed that she was acting weird because Rose had come up to her and asked what was wrong.

Kaydel didn’t have an acceptable answer except to tell her exactly what had happened. Rose had a way of calming people down and she had done the exact same thing with Rey. And that was how they had all become friends, Rose introduced Kaydel and Rey to Jannah and Poe and the rest was history. Rey was there for her when she realized that she had feelings for Jannah after one particularly hard mission. The two of them were scouting after she had stitched up a minor wound on Jannah’s arm and Rey said, “So, when are you gonna tell her that you like her?”

“What?” Kaydel nearly stumbled over a tree branch and Rey laughed, that low and gravelly sound that was disturbing to some people but not to her. “How did you know that?”

“You’re not subtle,” Rey rolled her eyes, “your heart rate leaps like every time the two of you are closed to each other.”

“Yeah, yeah, well not everyone can hear each other’s heartbeats.”

“You should tell her, she’s really nice.”

“She’s not just nice, she’s really pretty and so strong and could definitely kick my ass and so much smarter with me and—way out of my league.”

“Oh my god,” Rey rolled her eyes, “you humans. So complicated for no reason, I’m pretty sure she likes you too. Her heart rate always accelerates around you too, you have no reason not to tell her.”

“I don’t know,” She had said. She was scared. So scared. But Rey had been there for her and had listened to her every time she pined over Jannah but was too scared to ask her out. Eventually when they got the task to Kill the King, she decided that if they all came out alive, she would ask her out. She had never thought that all of this would happen.

She never thought that the person she considered her closest friend would betray her. When everything had gone down, she was in shock, and when she was locked away in that prison cell with the rest of the group she had done nothing but cry for hours.

That’s why when Kaydel saw a guard coming to their door, she was sure something bad was going to happen to them. But then she saw his eyes, and a small bit of hope filled her. They were clouded over and dark, and for some reason they reminded her so much of Rey. It was a bit of a surprise, and she thought that she might just be acting stupid, letting her get her hopes up. Until the guard jutted out his arm unnaturally with the key and opened the door. “Go up,” He said, “be quiet when you escape. Ben’s in the woods on the south side of the palace. He’s alive.”

Everyone was looking at each other confused, but Kaydel got up immediately. “Come on,” She hissed, “we need to go.”

“This could be a trap,” Rose said.

“Well,” Poe said, “I guess that we’re going to have to find out.”

They ran. Having no idea what they were going to do other than get out of the palace and regroup.

*

This was a problem. Ben had no idea where the rest of the group was and he had just killed several of the guardsmen which meant that if they were found, then he would have trouble doing what he needed to do and get out of the palace. He decided the first thing that he was going to do was find the rest of his group, and then they could regroup somewhere and get rid of the King and Snoke once and for all. The thought popped up in his mind of what was going to happen to Rey, but he told himself that he wasn’t going to think about that now. He had other more important things to do. Ben ran up back into the palace, hoping that they were trying to escape.

Finding them would be a problem, and Ben tried not to think of the worst that could happen while he searched through the immediate areas. Part of him wanted to just start destroying things until he found them, but he knew that he needed to be careful about it. Something brought him to a small pocket of the palace past the library, it looked like a long hallway and nothing else, but he was drawn there. That’s where he was nearly clobbered in the face by Poe.

He dodged just in time and Jannah hissed, “Ben?”

“Hey,”

“You’re here?”

“Yeah, I am.” He said. “I was coming to set you guys free, and here you guys already escaped. I don’t know how you managed that but I’m glad you’re all okay.”

“We couldn’t have done it without Rey,” Kaydel said.

“Wait, what?”

“Kaydel thinks that she possessed the guard that unlocked the door for us with some kind of spell,” Poe said, “I don’t know what to think. Not after everything that helped us.”

“It’s possible,” Ben looked back down the hallway, wanting more now than ever to go find her and bring her back. Show her that the two of them could be happy together. But he knew that this was more important at the moment. “So do we have a plan?”

“We need to find a place to hide, that way we can find an opening to kill Palpatine without leaving the palace.”

“I’m not sure that we’re going to get that chance,” Rose said, “there’s a lot of people that are in this palace, it means there’s so many people that will be around to see us and blow our cover. It’s risky to say here, we need to get out and come back at a later date, that way Palpatine thinks that we chickened out and won’t see us coming.”

“But what about Rey?”

“I think Rey can handle herself,” Poe said, “besides we’re not even sure if she’s actually on our side or not.”

“I guess you’re right,” He sighed. Rey was a powerful sorceress, she wasn’t defenseless. “But I’ve seen what she’s been through,” He said, “they broke her last time. I know how they turned her against us, it wasn’t pretty. I think that we need to find her and get her out of here too. Even if she’s made some bad decisions she’s still saved our lives several times, she still doesn’t deserve everything that she’s gone through.”

“Can you hear yourself? Rey betrayed us, and if I’m guessing right, she gave you that scar too. Why are you so quick to forgive her?”

Because if Ben was admitting it, he still loved her so much. He wanted to be able to hold her again and he didn’t care what she looked like, he only cared about the fact that the both of them were safe and happy. “Because, if it was me in her position, I would hope that someone would forgive me as well.”

“He’s right,” Kaydel said, “I think that we need to get her out of here,”

“I agree with Kaydel,” Rose said.

“Yeah, me too.” Jannah said. “What happened was bad for us all, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to be friends with Rey the same way that I was before, but she doesn’t deserve to get tortured by anyone. Especially since that was what so much of her life was like in the first place.”

“Thank you,” Kaydel said. Jannah gave her a small smile and the two of them stared at each other for a minute. Poe sighed, looking dismayed.

“Okay,” He said, “but how are we going to find Rey? And how are we going to get her out of here? She might not want to come with us.”

“I think I know the spell to find her,” Rose said.

“Leave the convincing her up to me,” Ben replied.

“Okay then,” Poe said, “I guess we have a plan.”


	27. more pain in love

Rey had been in meeting rooms all day, hoping to anyone that was kind enough to still bestow mercy upon her that they had gotten out of the palace. She always had something in the back of her mind telling her that she never had such luck though. Still, Rey tried her best to delay and keep Palpatine and Snoke in the same room. The longer they were there, the longer that the rest of her group had time to escape. “You look positively enthralled,” One of the knights, Hux, whispered to her.

Rey shrugged her shoulders, thinking about her friends still. “Just so glad to be here,” She rolled her eyes, just when a nervous and timid guard knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Hux said.

Rey watched as a timid brunette man entered the room, “U-um…I-I…”

“Spit it out,” Palpatine said.

“Uh, m-my King. T-the prisoners have escaped from their cells.”

Shit. Rey knew what was going to come next, and she really didn’t want to be around when it happened. She sighed, knowing that she was going to have to do something real soon. The room got icy cold, and Rey closed her eyes, forcing her heart rate to go down as much as it could. “What?”

“I-I’m so—” He was cut off by a choking noise, his feet getting dangled up off the floor.

Normally, Rey would have saved him. But she really didn’t want any suspicion whatsoever. When he died, she bit the inside of her cheek. Hoping that they wouldn’t turn their focus onto her. “Well,” Snoke said, “it looks like we have a problem. Rey?”

“They’ll be dead in an hour,” Rey said.

“For your sake, I hope so. Take Hux with you so the two of you can cover more ground.”

“Right,” Rey said. Part of her wanted to scream inside as soon as Snoke put his personal attack dog by her side, but she knew that it wouldn’t take long for her to get rid of him. She just waited for the both of them to get closer to one of the hidden corridors, and once they were inside, she snapped his neck and threw him a storage closet, continuing on by herself.

She didn’t really have a plan at all, but she knew that sometimes not having a plan would give her more room to improvise if something failed. At this point, she was just making sure the rest of the group made it out of the palace. She knew that if she stayed, there was a chance that something bad could happen to her, but she would rather that bad thing happen to her than to the rest of the group.

She just had to find them.

*

Rey and Ben and the rest of the group ran into each other right in the middle of a previously abandoned wing of the palace. Rey nearly yelped in surprise but stopped herself. Ben was about to open his mouth when Rey said, “What are you guys doing closer to the throne room? I opened that door, so you’d get out of here!” She saw Poe and Kaydel exchange glances with each other as Ben took a step forward.

“We came back for you,” Rey tried to resist the urge not to laugh, “why are you looking for us?”

“To make sure that you don’t get captured again, because that wouldn’t be good for any of you.” Ben took a step forward and Rey took a step back. “You need to go. Make it off the grounds. I can make it look like you guys are dead. It’s just a simple spell. That way the guards won’t be looking for you and you can come back and kill the King.”

“We can think of another plan, you staying here is dangerous. What if they see right through the spell? You’ll go right back to being tortured.”

Kaydel took a step forward as well, “Rey, you don’t deserve to stay here. This place—it’s _awful_ and I still can’t imagine what you had to go through growing up here. Please, just come with us.” Something about the way that she said that made Rey feel weak. She hated crying in front of people, so she focused on a brick on the floor and kept looking at it.

“Considering that you just saved our lives, I think that we can forgive you for what you did. Plus, just because we haven’t killed the King yet, doesn’t mean that we’re gonna miss our window of opportunity to do it.” Poe said. “We need your help though, and we can’t do that if Snoke has his hands on you again.” Rey saw that here she was going to have to pick what she did. She looked back up at Ben, who was holding his hand out to her. She stared at his face, the scar that she marked him with. He should be furious at her. Instead he held her hand out to her, asking her to take it.

Rey did.

“Okay,” She said, “let’s get out of here.”

*

Rey told them the right way to go to get out of the palace, and they had made it with relative ease. Something told Ben that there was a problem with the fact that they hadn’t been cornered yet as they ran back towards the woods. It was ten miles until the cover of the woods would provide them safety. Ben held Rey’s hand as tight as he could. He didn’t want to lose her all over again. They were closing the distance, Ben was so sure they were going to make it, until he heard Rey scream. Her hand was ripped from his and he turned, watching as Snoke and his lackeys grabbed onto her and she struggled. Jannah shot back some of the guards coming for them and Ben was about to lunge for Snoke, until an invisible force stopped him.

Rey was feral against his hold, scratching and clawing at him as he held her close. “Go!” She shouted. “Get out of here! Don’t let them capture you again!”

“What? Rey I’m—” That’s when he felt Rey use her own magic to push him back. He could hear her start to choke against Snoke’s hold. Could hear guards and monsters coming for them. But he was only focused on Rey.

“Listen, Ben---I’m sorry.” She cried. “For everything I did. I’m sorry for lying to you, I’m sorry that I hurt you so much, you didn’t deserve any of that. Just get out of here, okay!” Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I love you,”

_‘No.’_ Snoke was laughing, talking about something. But he couldn’t hear him. He didn’t care either. There was no way he was letting this man take away the girl that he loved again. Ben had not had a chance to use the power that was in him, he had no idea what was going to happen, but here he could feel it building up in him. A line of energy that burned hotter than the holy energy that he used to emit. The guards and the monsters were almost upon him and he didn’t care, he extended his hands and let all of the power in him explode.

The ground around him rippled like it was water.

The blast was powerful.

When Ben got up, Snoke was dead, and Rey was laying a few feet away from him unconscious. “No, no, no.” He ran towards her despite the fact that he felt dizzy and out of breath and blood was dripping down his cheeks. “Come on,” When he put his hand on her wrist and felt her pulse point, she was still breathing. Ben picked her up and held her close to her chest and got up, finally looking around and seeing the destruction that he had caused. There was a crater that was almost a mile wide around him. Ben had no idea how many people were dead around him, all he knew was that there was lots of destruction.

“We need to get out of here!” Rose shouted.

Ben nodded, making sure he had a firm grip on Rey before running for the woods.

*

They ran a long way before they found a cave behind a thick bramble of bushes where they could stay. They were careful to make sure that there was no trace of them to be found, and thanks to some of Rose’s magic, they were safe. Ben laid Rey down and made sure that her head was stabilized, taking the cowl that he had from his guard’s disguise and laying it over her to give her at least some sort of warmth. “Okay,” Jannah said, “I think I’ll ask you because no one else has yet. How the hell did you do that?” Ben was tired. So tired.

“I have no idea,” He admitted, “I just saw red and it happened.”

“That was so badass! Why haven’t you done anything like that before?”

“Because that wasn’t holy magic,” Kaydel said, “that looked a lot like the magic that Rey uses—but different. It was like that time that you used Mother Talzin’s power to heal Rey, but this time it was a lot more intense. Brighter.”

“Well, whatever it was, I’m glad you did it. You certainly pissed off Palpatine, and now that Snoke is dead with a large portion of his army, killing him is going to be a lot easier.” Poe clapped him on the back and Ben gave him a weak smile. He really didn’t want to think about what going back there to kill Palpatine would be like. He knew that he had taken out a large portion of his monsters and his guards, but was that really the extent of the army that he still had waiting at the palace? Or was there more?

“Do you think that she’s going to be okay?” Kaydel was right next to Rey, brushing her hair out of her face.

“I think she will,” Ben said, “we just have to wait and see.”

*

_Rey was in a space of just white. There was nothing else around her. She couldn’t see any of her surroundings. She just felt cold and scared and alone and had no idea what was going on. “Hello?” She called out. “Is there anyone out there?” She pulled herself up, trying to figure out what was happening to her in this very moment. But everything felt so hazy. She wasn’t sure what else she was supposed to do except stand there in confusion and wait for something to happen. She sighed, not sure why she felt so tired and so cold. She glanced left and right, hoping that something would happen. Rey was pretty sure that she had been standing there forever before something finally did._

_She heard a scream of a child behind her, and she whipped around to see something that she didn’t remember. It was her mother, although her face was hazy and Rey could barely make out any of the details, she knew that it was her. She was holding Rey in her arms as the midwives were tending to her to make sure that she was okay. “There you are, little one.” She smiled at the screaming baby that was now in her arms. The baby that was Rey. “You’re such a bright little one, I think I’m going to name you Rey.” Rey looked down at herself. Still not being able to make out the details of her face when she was that little, but hearing the sounds that the baby made._

_The way she sounded so innocent._

_She wondered where everything went wrong._

_The scene changed._

_Rey was only a few years old when she started to make things float with her mind. She would giggle and stare at the toys that she made levitate in the air, and she watched as she terrified each au pair that was sent to take care of her. She guessed that this was why everyone was so terrified of her. She wasn’t sure if she should forgive them, knowing that a child with abilities that were far greater than anything you could ever imagine was scary, but at the same time, she was just a child._

_How was she to blame for things that she did then? Her brain seemed to be cycling through memories, until she got to that moment in the forest where she was going to sacrifice her life so that the rest of her friends could get away. And for some reason, she couldn’t move forward._

_*_

When Rey woke up, she felt like she hadn’t taken a single breath in years. She shot up and her head was pounding, but the most confusing part was the fact that she wasn’t in the body she remembered last being in. Rey stared at her hands and didn’t see claws, she didn’t see feathers. She turned and looked for the rest of her group, calling out people’s names. Ben was first of course. He came running for her in an outfit that she didn’t remember seeing him in. Her eyesight was better, and she could see his face crystal clear in the daylight. She knew for sure he had never had the scar that bisected his face before. “Are you okay?” He asked her.

“What happened?” She reached her hand up to caress her face and Ben looked confused.

“What do you mean?”

“To me, to you, I don’t—what’s going on?”

“We escaped Palpatine’s palace,”

“Is he dead?”

“No,” Ben looked even more confused, “are you okay? What’s the last thing that you remember?”

“We were in the forest, and Palpatine’s monsters were about to kill you guys so I told you to go ahead and go on without me. That’s it.” His face paled when she said that, and that told her there was a lot of time missing.

“What did she say?” Poe asked as the rest of the group started to near closer.

“How much time has passed?” Rey asked. The confusion only got more intense the longer that she was awake.

*

Ben had no idea what to do when Rey said that she didn’t remember anything that happened in the castle. The last thing that she remembered was sacrificing herself in the woods. For a second, he wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not. But after both Rose and Kaydel looked at her and determined she was telling the truth; Ben was fairly sure that he knew what happened. Rey must’ve hit her head pretty hard on the way down from the blast that had eviscerated Snoke. He sighed, not knowing what to do. “She really can’t remember anything from the past few weeks?” Jannah asked.

“Yeah,” Ben said, “she must’ve hit her head pretty hard.” Poe was glancing at her every once and a while.

“What are we going to tell her?” He asked.

“The truth,” Ben said, “I mean what else are we going to tell her?”

“I just—if she doesn’t remember that then why should we tell her?” Kaydel said. “Let’s just be grateful that Rey is back and we don’t have to worry about anything else. Okay? Let’s just tell her that Snoke is dead and that be the end of it.”

“Or you could just tell me what’s going on?” Rey said. She had gotten up and was walking towards the rest of the group. “It’s clear that I have time missing, so why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?” Ben gulped, staring at her for a second and taking her all in.

“Are you sure that you really want to know?” Poe asked.

“I’ll tell her,” Ben interrupted. Rey raised an eyebrow as Ben motioned for the two of them to get out of earshot of everyone else. She followed him, obviously not sure where this was going. He could tell that she looked nervous and confused. Ben wished that they didn’t have so much that they had to do still, that way he didn’t have to tell her everything that had gone on since then. But he knew that he had to. The two of them sat down at the base of a tree.

“What’s going on?” Rey finally asked when there had been a moment of silence between the two of them.

“A lot of stuff has gone on since then, um—a lot.”

“Okay,” She sighed, “by the looks of it, it’s not good.”

“Yeah,” Ben said, “unfortunately it’s not.”

“So why don’t you just tell me?”

“I’m not sure how you’d react,” He sighed. He knew that he had to tell her what happened, and he didn’t know how to best tell her everything that happened.

“Ben,” She grabbed his hand, “just lay it on me.”

Another beat of silence.

“You betrayed everyone,”


	28. be patient with me, be gentle with me

Rey nearly choked when Ben said that. It was definitely a way to break the news to her. Her brain was reeling for a second, trying to recall a memory where she would’ve betrayed everyone. “What?” Ben bit his lip, obviously racking his brain for the right words. This anxiety started building up in Rey like she had never imagined. She sighed, knowing that she shouldn’t panic right now. No one seemed mad at her, so obviously she had done something to make it up to everyone else.

“So, when you sacrificed yourself we all that you had died—I mean the sounds—we thought—yeah. It wasn’t pleasant. So we had gone to the palace to kill Palpatine but had gotten caught and it turned out that you were still alive and had turned us in, I don’t know what happened but I assume that you had been tortured pretty heavily because you looked—not great—when I saw you. And then Palpatine revoked the curse or something and you turned human,” He paused, staring at her with this nervous look in his eyes.

“What aren’t you telling me?” She asked.

“Uh, there were a lot of things that happened, Rey. You kind of severed my connection with the Gods.”

“What?”

“We got into a fight, and I accepted Asaji Ventress’ patronage, and it got bad. But you severed the connection between me and the gods.”

Without thinking, Rey said something that she never had before, “I’m sorry.” It was something that scared her more than anything after she said it. Saying sorry was something that weak people said. That’s what she had always been taught by Snoke and by Palpatine. But she was comfortable enough to say that to Ben. Because she knew how much the Gods meant to him, and she knew that it must’ve been tough to not have them there.

“It’s okay,” Ben said, “I think it’s for the better. What you did—you were right about me having my own power. I think I was limited by the gods,”

“So you figured out how to use your own power,” Rey raised an eyebrow. It sounded like so much had happened and she couldn’t believe that she didn’t remember any of this. “That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, I went to go help the rest of the group because they had been thrown in prison. But you had decided to help them instead. You helped everyone escape, and you were going to sacrifice yourself again because Snoke had caught up to us, but I killed him.”

Rey was silent.

She wasn’t sure how to process that news. Her hands were shaking a little bit, and her stomach flipped. But instead of this sinking feeling that she so often felt when she was getting anxious, it was like this weight was lifted off her shoulders. “So I guess that means that you know—about Palpatine. Where I’m from,”

“We all know,” Ben told her. Rey sighed, taking in a deep breath.

“I should’ve told you,” She said, “and I wanted to. I really did. But I was scared,”

“Of what?”

“That you would hate me,” Rey laughed, but there was no joy in it. “Isn’t it obvious? Anything that man touches gets corrupted and I didn’t want to be associated with his name. I didn’t want to be associated with anyone’s name. I just want to be me.” Ben was quiet for a little bit, and Rey wondered what he was thinking. She got her answer soon enough.

“I guess that’s understandable,” He said.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No,” He shook his head, “for a while I was. But uh—I reckoned that after everything that happened to you, after all the pain that you’ve been through, it would be unfair to keep being mad at you.” Rey felt tears pricking at her eyes, and she sighed, not wanting to show emotion but knowing that it was okay. It was okay to be vulnerable around Ben. She let a few tears fall down her cheeks before she started to wipe them away.

“You’re a lot better person than I am,” Rey sniffed. “I don’t think I’d have the strength to forgive myself the way you do.”

“I don’t think I believe in suffering anymore,”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, “before—when I was a cleric, suffering was glorified. You suffer for your place in the heavens, you suffer for your place as a saint in the history books, you suffer for your sins and then you suffer even more if you want to be forgiven. But since then I’ve realized that I don’t want that. I don’t want that for myself and I don’t want that for my friends, and I certainly don’t want that for you. I just want to be happy, I want everyone to be happy.”

“You’ve come along way,” Rey said, “I just hope that I can live up to the trust that you’ve placed in me.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can.” Ben smiled. “Trust me.”

*

Things were slow at first when Rey came back and they were hiding out. They had to make sure that Rey didn’t still have remnants of monster in her, and she didn’t, but that was disorienting for her. She also had to heal from the injury that she had from Snoke, and while Ben was able to heal her some, he was exhausted from killing Snoke.

Slowly, Rey also began to rebuild her relationships with the rest of the group. Kaydel was the first to come around, the two of them spent time patrolling together and Ben had heard as Rey apologize to her. The two of them hugged and were friends again. They seemed to be even closer than they had been before. Jannah was next. Kaydel seemed to be rather good at persuading her to come around. And then Rose followed. And finally Poe.

They were all close again, and everything seemed alright.

Ben was grateful that everything was okay, at least for the moment. He held onto the little things, like seeing Rey laugh and smile, and realize that in both forms she was so beautiful. But now she seemed different. Ben wasn’t sure what it was, but he liked it. Even though her eyes were still pitch black and there were scars from Snoke’s experiments that ran up and down her arms, she was happier.

Ben wished that they could stay on those happy moments and never have to deal with Palpatine again. But of course, he knew that they had to. There was still so much work that wanted to be done, and even though they were healing right now, they couldn’t afford to delay.

It was nearly a week later when Rey said, “Okay. We need to take down Palpatine,”

*

“Okay then, I guess that we’re back to business.” Poe sighed. Everyone was tired and just wanted to stop for a little bit, but all of them knew that didn’t have the luxury of doing that. Rey wanted to get everything over with, and with the haze from her brain slowing clearing, now was a better time than ever before. She had a better grasp of her body and herself, and even though she didn’t remember the torture and the betrayal that Ben had told her about, she still tried her best to make amends for that. There was something else that he wasn’t telling her about, and Rey sighed, knowing that he would tell her about whatever was going on later.

She just couldn’t think about that right now. She need to focus on the important tasks at hand. The war was coming to a close, and either way it was going, Rey decided that she wasn’t going to fight just for her survival anymore. She needed to stop leading herself down such a destructive path like this, and actually fight. Ben taught her that.

*

It was hard not to feel a sense of doom looming over your shoulders when you were about to confront one of the more powerful dark forces in the world after previously losing to them. Ben couldn’t lie when he said that he was nervous about facing Palpatine this time, but there was something about it that was different. Because he knew that there was more reasons not to be nervous.

He was stronger than he had ever been before, and this time Rey was on his side as well. He wasn’t sure how it was going though. Kaydel said that Rey had some form of head trauma from the explosion that Ben had caused. That made him apprehensive at when they should attack, much to Rey’s chagrin. The two of them talked about it one dark night while everyone else was asleep. “Are you sure that you don’t want to sit this one out?” He asked her. “This is going to be really dangerous and I don’t want you getting more hurt than you already are.”

“I think that if anything, I should be the first one to get hurt.” Rey muttered under her breath.

“Rey,” Ben said.

“What? I’m telling the truth, I fucked up, I deserve it. I don’t deserve how nice you’re treating me right now and I don’t get it. Why aren’t you mad at me?” He wasn’t sure if they should be having this conversation. Especially right before they were about walk back into certain danger, but he sighed, knowing that Rey wasn’t going to rest until she got an answer from him.

“I was mad at you,”

Rey was quiet, Ben wasn’t sure if he should continue or not. But he had a feeling that this was something that needed to be said, “I was really really angry with you for the longest time, Rey. You betrayed me and it felt like you cut out my heart and then crushed it over and over again.” He watched as she wiped a few tears from her cheek. “But I would be lying to myself if I said that everything that you did was entirely your fault.”

The way Ben saw it, a lot of it had to deal with the fact that she had been tortured so badly that she was scared. She thought that what she did was the best option for everyone. Ben understood that, but he wasn’t sure if Rey did. “What you said makes no sense,” She muttered, “you say that you were really angry for me betraying you. _I betrayed you._ And somehow this isn’t my fault? I still don’t get how you could forgive me at all.”

“Let me finish,” He sighed, “because maybe then it will make sense.” Rey stared at him after he said that, and he took in a deep breath, trying to think of the right way to say everything that he wanted to say to her. Finally, he found the words. “When I started studying to become a cleric, there were a lot of wrong things about the world that I had been taught.”

“You can say that again,” Rey muttered under her breath. Ben had to refrain from rolling his eyes.

“But there was something that I was taught from a young age that was something that I held onto, although I never really practiced it perfectly. I was taught that no one being is perfect, everyone is going to make mistakes that they regret in life, some a lot more than others, and that doesn’t necessarily make them a bad person. So, forgive them for the mistakes that they made. And hope that they become a better person, despite the mistakes that they made.”

“So you’re forgiving me because of your religious indoctrination?”

“You’re not getting it, Rey. I’m not doing it because of the gods or anything like that. I’m past looking to them for guidance on anything. I don’t want them in my life anymore, but I think that teaching is something that should be held onto. I’m sticking by that ideology. And—I have a feeling that the things that you went through when you were captured by Palpatine were unfathomable, so I’m not going to hold it against you.”

There was a long silence between the two of them. Ben could hear crickets chirping not far off, and he wondered what Rey was thinking in that very moment. She stayed quiet, looking like she wanted to curl in on herself. “What if I’m just a bad person?” She asked Ben. “What if I do this again? What if I hurt someone again?”

“Rey—” She looked like she was genuinely wounded, and more lost and vulnerable than Ben had ever seen her. She got up before he could say anything else, muttering something about how she didn’t want to hear it anymore. Ben didn’t know what else to say to change her mind.

*

When Rey had started out with the group, it was a lot easier to grapple with the fact that she was a bad person. She had accepted that fact a long time ago. She had something wrong her and that was why she did the things she did, that was why bad things happened to her. But something was different now.

Now, they were down to the minute when it came to stopping Palpatine, and Ben had told her that she had betrayed him and the rest of her friends, and she couldn’t even remember it. She had no idea why she couldn’t remember it either. It was as if the world just wanted her to feel worse and worse by the moment.

And why?

Rey wanted to know how she had gotten to this point. What made her so awful that her life had spiraled into where she was now? Why could she never do anything right? Why did the gods have it out for her? Why did every adult figure in her life want to take advantage of her or kill her? Why? Why? Why? Rey kept racking her brain for answers but she had none.

She had to have been a monster before Snoke and Palpatine had turned her into one. Right?

That had to be the only explanation. That had to be the reason that she deserved all this. ‘ _A person isn’t defined by their mistakes,’_ She heard Ben’s voice in her head.

“Shut the fuck up,” She muttered under her breath, walking around the depths of the woods. She deserved to be punished. She was a bad person. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” She deserved death. She deserved worse. Everyone was just lying to her when they said that they forgave her for what happened. Rey felt like she was spiraling. She just kept walking and walking and walking. “Fuck,”

*

It had been four hours since anyone had last seen Rey. "You just let her go?" Poe shouted at Ben. "Are you fucking serious?" 

"I thought she would be back," 

"She could be back at the castle telling everyone that we're still alive and our location," 

"Don't you think that if she was gonna do that, there would be people here already?" Rose pointed out. "Calm down, Poe. Those creatures travel fast, they would've been here and they would've killed us." Poe took in a deep breath through his nose, talking about how everything was coming down to it and Rey was gone. 

"What did you say to her?" Kaydel asked. 

"I told her that she needed to stop beating herself up about what she did, and then she freaked out." Ben said. "I thought that she needed a minute to clear her head," 

Kaydel sighed, looking defeated. "Fuck. We can't split up like we did last time." 

"Then we need to track her down," Rose said. "I'll put together a spell." 

"I can help," Ben said. Poe was still giving him a raised eyebrow. 

"Poe, stop it." Rose said. "I'd love your help, come on. We can figure this one out. There's still enough time," 


	29. do you have enough love in your heart to get your hands dirty

Of course, Rey would disappear right when they were about to go attack the First Order. That was just their luck. Ben had no idea where she had gone, and it seemed like her tracks disappeared out of the middle of nowhere. “Maybe we are going to have to go in without her,” Jannah suggested. Ben shook his head.

“Last time, that didn’t work out.” Ben told everyone. “We need to do something different this time, if we really want to defeat Palpatine, we need her here with us.”

“Ben,” Rose said, “I think that we should go ahead and go. Palpatine is dangerous, and he doesn’t know that we’re coming. So we can go ahead and get this over with. We can find Rey later,” Ben sighed, knowing that he wasn’t going to win this fight, despite the fact that he wanted to make sure that Rey was okay.

“Maybe she’ll come back,” Kaydel said. “We can make a marker for her or something.”

“Yeah,” Poe said, “we can do that. But we have to go this time.”

*

Rey ended up at a lake.

She had always taken comfort in them, sometimes fantasizing about sinking to the very bottom of one and never coming back up for air. The relief she would get when she thought about that was insurmountable, but she knew that she couldn’t do that. That would be taking the easy way out, and she didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve anything easy.

“I should just die,” She muttered to herself, “that would be easier for everyone.” Or would it? She kept thinking about how despite everything, Ben had told her that he didn’t want to see her suffer. How her friends had told her that they cared about her, even though she had hurt them so much. She wondered if just dying would hurt them even more.

Rey wasn’t used to people caring.

Maybe she still wasn’t used to it.

She didn’t know how people could care about her with the mistakes that she had made, all of the things that she had done. The awful things that she had done. Rey felt tears slip down her cheeks. “You’re weak,” She said, looking at her reflection in the water, “you’re a monster. You don’t deserve love.” She took in a ragged breath. “You mess up everything that you do. Something is wrong with you, you deserved everything that happened to you. You deserved it.” Everything was quiet for a long time. There wasn’t even any sounds of screaming nearby. No dying animals to disrupt her destructive thoughts.

Rey was just there, in this frame of existence that she didn’t know how to handle. “Everyone is better off without you.” As soon as she said that, something odd happened. It was as if the lake started to glow, this dim blue color. Rey sniffed, not knowing what she should do. There was this enticing call though, telling her that she should come in. She told herself that maybe she should ignore the call, maybe she should go back to the group and pretend this never happened.

But the call was too enticing. Rey got up, dipping a foot in the water.

*

“Since we know where the throne room is, we’re going to be approaching from a different side of the castle. This time there’s not going to be any distractions, everyone just needs to be stealthy.” Ben wasn’t sure how this plan was going to work, but he had to go along with it either way. “We need to stay away from the big corridors, where the monsters could fit in. Ben did a good thing and got rid of a considerable chunk of them, but we still need to be careful. And remember, we have to get rid of Palpatine at all costs.”

“Yes,” Rose said.

“At all costs,” Kaydel repeated. She looked sad, looking to Jannah and then past her at the woods again. Of course, both her and Ben were probably thinking the same thing. Where was Rey? She was supposed to be here.

“We set out in thirty minutes,” Poe said, “everyone get your stuff together.”

Everyone broke up after that, packing in silence. This was more nerve wracking than the first time that they had all gone through this. Ben could feel this eternally sinking feeling in his stomach. He hoped that everything would go alright. He didn’t want this to be the last time that almost everyone was together like this.

*

Kaydel followed Jannah to help her with her packing. Her heartrate was making her shake a little. Suddenly, she remembered when Rey had told her that she should just go for it and ask Jannah if she had feelings for her as well. She remembered how nervous she had always been, but she didn’t want either of them to die without saying something. “Um, Jannah?”

“Yeah?” She was still packing up her stuff.

“Can I tell you something?” She felt like her heart was going to leap out of her throat.

“What?”

“I um—can you stop packing up your stuff for a second?” Jannah stopped and turned around, looking Kaydel in the eyes. She felt even more nervous than she had been before, but she knew that she had to say something. Her eyes got softer after a second when she could tell that Kaydel was nervous.

“Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah…I just—I needed to tell you before we did anything that I um—I have feelings for you. Yeah,” There was a pause between them. Jannah’s eyes went wide, and Kaydel feared that she was about to be rejected. She immediately turned on her heels to leave when Jannah grabbed her wrist.

“Where are you going?”

“I uh—”

“Turn around,” She said. Kaydel did exactly as she asked and Jannah dropped her wrist. “I uh—I didn’t know that you had feelings for me.”

“Yeah,” Kaydel said, “I do. It’s uh—it’s okay if you don—”

“I have feelings for you too.” Jannah blurted out. Kaydel’s heart almost stopped.

“You do?”

“Yes, I do.”

*

Rey was used to drowning. She had been doing it her whole life. Unable to breathe and unhappy because of it. That’s why she kept flying away in search of something else, trying to survive, the whole time not knowing how to live with everything that happened to her. Now, Rey was deep in the water.

She felt the need to swim deeper than she had before. She had never been a great swimmer, but something was guiding her deep into the water. She could feel her lungs constricting, but the feeling didn’t alarm her. She kept swimming deeper and deeper until she found what was calling her. It was a place of darkness. It was cold but not unfeeling, and when Rey reached for it, she was in a cave.

She resurfaced, taking in as much air as possible and gasping. It took her a second to find the shore, and when she finally got it, she took a second to recover before she got back on her feet. “Fuck,” She muttered to herself. There was a certain power radiating through the cave that she wasn’t sure how to explain. It made everything glow this dim blue-green color though. “What am I doing here?” She said. She had no idea what had overtaken her to come here. But she had.

She needed to figure out why she was here.

Rey shivered, not used to being somewhere so cold without all the feathers and everything else that had been weighing her down for a long time. She turned, staring at the wall of the cave behind her. Its icy texture reminded her somewhat of a mirror.

That was what had been calling to her this whole time. Rey was stuck in her spot for a minute, and then she took another step towards it. She wondered if this would be the answer. If this would show her what was wrong with her and what made her such a bad person.

Everything around her was silent except for the steady drip, drip, drip, of the stalactites dripping water onto the cave floor. Rey finally made herself close the distance between the mirror and herself, and without thinking, she reached out for answers. Not sure what she was going to find.

What she found was something that she didn’t expect.

*

They had to be quick and lethal. This was something that none of them could mess up. It helped that this time they had a different strategy, but Ben still couldn’t help but think that things would be going a lot smoother if Rey was here. Palpatine was preparing for war. They could tell that when they were inside the castle. All of his creatures were being herded in different directions and they could hear officials shouting in the hallway about different orders.

Apparently, the news of Snoke’s death had just arrived, and everyone that worked for Palpatine was in disbelief as to how this could have happened. Ben had to be honest, he was a little proud of the chaos that he had caused. He told himself that he would have to celebrate later though. They had gotten by not managing to be caught yet, sneaking through the smallest of crawl spaces and making sure that none of these creatures could see them or hear them with a cloaking spell that Rose had taken extra care in making. There was still a possibility for error though, as they were not in the throne room.

That possibility was making Ben’s heart creep up in his throat. There were so many times when they held their breath because someone was too close for comfort. More than anything, Ben wanted to get this over with. He wanted to be far away from here right now. But he knew that thinking about being in another place wasn’t going to help him right now.

He needed to calm down.

He was stronger than he had ever been before.

Palpatine didn’t stand a chance. Even if he was a powerful sorcerer, it was one against five. There was no way that he could win those odds right? Right?

Things were finally starting to look up for them when they had managed to sneak in the throne room without anyone noticing them. The only problem is that they currently couldn’t reveal themselves and take Palpatine out without jeopardizing everybody. There was twelve officers in the throne room, listening to the demands that Palpatine dolled out. Ben winced at every hurled verbal abuse that he threw, but he could hold himself back for the most part.

Until he heard Palpatine mention _her._

“And to anyone that can find the traitor, I will offer the most rewarding sum to.”

Ben could see Poe mouthing, ‘ _Don’t do it.’_

He knew that he really shouldn’t. But this man was the reason for so much strife and grief, he was responsible for all the pain that Rey felt. And Ben wanted her to be free of that pain. He didn’t want her to feel any pain at all, and while he knew that that was impossible, this would be the next best thing.

Palpatine’s head on a pike.

He didn’t expect anyone else to follow him, but he decided that he was going to strike. All the white-hot anger that was inside of him transformed into something a lot more focused, and the chandelier that was held up over the officials started to strain, and then the chain broke. Everything came crashing down after that.

There were two people dead, and everyone was alarmed. Ben was the first one to step out. He wasn’t thinking at this point, he was just out for blood. Palpatine was silent as he showed himself and everyone drew their weapons, “Yeah.” Ben said, “I think that your plans are going to need to change a little.”

Palpatine let out this low gravelly laugh. “Ah, the cleric. I should have known that you would be back here.” He didn’t sound surprised at all at first, but something about the look in his eyes told Ben that he was alarmed. Ben got satisfaction in that. “It’s funny though, how you came back with no backup. No Rey at your side, are you that confident that you would be able to take me on?” The officials were getting closer the Ben, waiting for the word to pounce.

Palpatine hadn’t given the order yet. “I’m not a cleric anymore.” Ben said. It was true, he didn’t need the help of the gods anymore. He realized a while ago that they were the ones that had been holding him back. “And yes, I am.” That’s when Palpatine gave the order. The room seemed to get darker and darker as Palpatine’s goons circled Ben.

Ben prayed that the rest of the group wouldn’t reveal themselves in the shadows. He could handle this.

None of them stood a chance.

*

Rey was scared.

She had been her whole life.

Until she wasn’t.

She found her way back to the surface, and although she was shaking and cold, she knew what she had to do. The first thing she did was head back towards the palace. She had an idea that the rest of the group wouldn’t have waited for her to catch up. That was fine, she just hoped that they hadn’t been stupid and got caught. Rey used her magic to advance faster than she would’ve on foot.

She still wasn’t used to the way that she couldn’t fly, but she knew that she would get used to it in time. The closer that she got to the palace, the more she could feel Ben’s presence. It was this strong burst of light in an environment that was otherwise dark and lifeless.

They were already in the throne room.

She hoped that she wasn’t too late. Rey decided that instead of going in through the door to the throne room and risking having to fight other people before Palpatine, she would just fight him instead. Going through a window was probably way more dramatic than she needed to be, but she didn’t care. Scaling the side of the building would have been way easier before, but now it was a bit of a challenge. She didn’t care, she would do anything to be able to get to the throne room. To be able to protect her friends.

And she did.

When she finally got to her opening, she took in a deep breath, summoning all of the strength and magic that she had, focusing it on every window in the throne room.

*

Ben was going to lose this fight. There were too many people, and he hoped that he could distract them for a moment while the rest of the crew took Palpatine out, but that didn’t happen. They came out to help him fight as well. Palpatine was cackling, probably bemused by everyone’s attempt to take him down. “Let’s face it,” He had said, “without the witch, you’re useless.” Ben had thought this before. They were only strongest when they were together.

It seemed like now, without her they were a mess.

At least, it was that way for a small amount of time. The aura in the air seemed to change as Palpatine’s goons piled onto the group and Palpatine watched, bloodlust in his eyes. Ben could feel blood dripping down his forehead as time seemed to slow down.

All of the windows imploded.

*

Rey knew that she was late. She knew that this fight was a long shot, even if she was added into the mix. But this time there was a confidence that she didn’t have with her before, and it burned. She wanted that life that she had always been so jealous of everyone for having. She wanted to be loved and she deserved it. She would fight for it with everything that she had. “Sorry,” She sighed as she picked herself up from the broken glass and, dusting off her bloody knees, “took me a while to get here. Hope I’m not too late,”

Everyone had paused admist their battles, and Rey could tell that Palpatine was shocked that she had actually returned. He was banking on the fact that she was utterly terrified of him. In a way, she still was. “You,” He said, “I thought you had the sense to stay away. You know the consequences of what happens when you disobey me.”

“Well,” Rey sighed, “you miscalculated.”

For the first time in a while, she smiled.

“I love my friends; I love Ben much more than I fear you.” A surge of black magic hurled towards her but she caught in her grasp, redirecting it back at Palpatine. The blast caught him, and he staggered back. Rey ran to join Ben, helping him to his feet. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” He said. He was smiling too. “You came,”

“Of course, I did,” She blinked, “I had to.”

Their conversation was cut short by Palpatine. He had recovered from Rey’s attack and was laughing now, something told her that he was trying to hide the fear in his voice from showing. “Isn’t this cute? The whole group together once again, I guess this is the perfect time to kill you all—” Rey was never one for monologues, before he could finish what he said, Rey uttered a spell and the magic burned as it came from her. She could feel her head get a little dizzy but she wasn’t done.

It hit Palpatine square in the chest, and he screamed, retaliating with a spark of lightning that sent her hurtling. Ben shouted her name as she hit a pillar, she narrowly got out of the way as it came tumbling to the ground. She got to her feet but was surrounded by monsters that she had once been like. They stared at her like leeches waiting to latch on to her and suck her dry of everything.

It was like she was looking in a mirror, looking at versions of her past selves. “You don’t have to do this,” She told them, “he’s controlling you. But you don’t have to listen to them anymore.” It didn’t really help much. They all lunged at her.

She was forced to attack.

*

Ben wanted to help Rey, but he couldn’t. He had his hands full with Palpatine, the two of them were locked in a battle of magic. It was clear that whatever damage Rey had done to him had fatally hindered him, but there was still something that he was clinging to. He could hear the din of battle behind him, could hear his friends fighting for their lives. He wanted to help them, but he couldn’t overextend himself. They would all tell him that he needed to focus on killing Palpatine.

“You’ll never do this by yourself,” He said, “you will die here.” Maybe part of that was true, maybe he couldn’t kill Palpatine by himself. “You’re alone,”

But he wasn’t alone, he could feel someone walking up behind him. He could feel Rey. There was this energy that thrummed in the room with her there. Like he was getting stronger just because of her presence. She held this magic within her that he could tell that she was planning to release with a thousand furies.

He could feel her rage, but he could also feel something else radiating out from inside her. “No,” Rey said, “he’s not alone.” The two of them locked eyes and he smiled at her. Feeling faint on his feet and like he couldn’t fight much longer, but Rey was there. Rey was there and there was hope, they locked hands then, and what energy he had left connected with hers. A bright, blinding light formed around them.

Everything exploded.


	30. life was a willow and it bent right to whim

In the wreckage, nothing should have stayed alive.

In the wreckage, Rey was sure she was going to find only ash and bone.

In the wreckage, laid all of Rey’s past.

The first person that she found was Ben. He was unconscious, but she could hear his heart beating. She went around picking through the rubble looking for everyone else. “Rose! Poe! Kaydel! Jannah!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. It took more effort than usual to fling the rubble away and look for her friends, but eventually she found a piece of scaffolding that had been covering a hole that she lifted with a little bit of magic.

“We’re down here!” Kaydel coughed.

When Rey found them, she was grateful to see everyone alive. “Fuck,” She looked at the hole for a second and then tried to muster a spell but found herself dizzy.

“Don’t worry about it,” Rose said, “we’ll get out of here.” It took them a minute to get up, but one after another they all came up out of the hole. Rey hugged Kaydel as soon as she got out and then turned, going back over to Ben. She stumbled a little in her efforts to get to him, the toll of the battle finally getting to her.

“Ben,” She said, “Ben? Wake up. Wake up,” She lightly tapped the side of his face and watched his eyes flutter and then open. She smiled, “You’re awake,”

When his eyes found hers, she felt whole.

*

_**Three Years Later** _

Life after Palpatine was something that Rey had never thought that she was going to experience, but here she was. For the first two years of their victory, Rey and Ben stayed with the Resistance and helped them build up everything that they had lost. Rey had mended her relationships with her friends, and she flourished. Waking up was easier now, not expecting death around every corner. She could laugh with ease and mirth and every day she woke up in Ben’s arms and she felt safe.

It was something that she hadn’t expected at all.

For it to feel so easy.

Yet it did.

For the first two years, Rey spent most of her time telling Ben how much she loved him. She spent her time trying to make up for everything she did despite the fact that he told her that he forgave her. This time she didn’t say that she didn’t deserve it, because she did. She did deserve it and she made sure every day that she was still deserving of the forgiveness that Ben and her friends gave to her.

For the first two years, she made more friends.

She felt like she was living.

For the first two years, everything was a whirlwind in the most spectacular way possible.

And then Rey and Ben made the decision to travel alone, at first Rey was scared. She didn’t know what was going to happen when it was just the two of them, she didn’t know if anything was permanent. She still had nightmares and felt like she had so much to atone for, but Kaydel and Jannah told her that she should. “You deserve to see the world more than anyone else, and not under the threat of death.”

“I suppose you’re right,” She said.

She set off with Ben the next day, his hand in hers.

She still wasn’t sure that she would ever get over the feeling of that. The elation that she got every time he smiled at her. The feeling of safety she got when he held her steady. “I love you,” It had taken her a long time to say that without being afraid of what would happen next.

But now she could never say it enough.

“I love you too,” He said, “more than anything in the world.”

_***** _

_**A Year Later** _

Ben never thought that happiness without the gods was something that he could achieve. But now he was living a life that he wouldn’t trade for the world. Rey and him had spent a year travelling around and helping people. Every day he got to wake up and see Rey smile. He saw her eyes light up in ways that he had never thought before.

Things weren’t perfect. There were still remnants of darkness, night terrors that would make her shriek and thrash at night but he was always there. He was always there when she cried and said that she never wanted him to leave her. “I’m never going to leave you,”

“Even if I’m broken?”

“Rey, you’re not broken.”

“I feel like it. I should be over by this by now, it feels like I’m going insane.”

“I think you’re surprisingly sane, everything considered.” Ben would tell her. “And what you went through was something that no one should ever go through. There’s not a set time for healing, trust me. I know that. Everyone heals at different rates.”

“And if I never heal?”

“Well then I’ll be there to make your days more tolerable,” Ben said, “I’m not leaving you.” It was at that when she would calm down and fall back asleep in his arms. When she would wake up she would stare at him like she was looking at her world, and he never wanted to disappoint her. He never wanted to let her down.

It seemed that nothing he could do ever would.

He was just himself around her. There was no expectation to be holy. There was no expectation to be perfect.

Ben was just Ben.

He wasn’t a cleric.

He wasn’t anything that anyone else told him to be.

He was just Ben, and Rey loved him vehemently for that.

After their year of travel, they settled near a riverside town that was so far away from the wars that had gone on that it was like no one had ever heard of the Resistance or the First Order. They hadn’t heard of the carnage that had gone on, and Rey and Ben lived there in peace. Rey started gardening.

It turned out that she liked that a lot.

Ben would cook for her.

Every time he made something, no matter how terrible it was in the beginning, Rey’s eyes lit up. Their home was a small one but it was theirs, and they both worked hard for it.

It was a month before Ben decided to propose to Rey that she started to sing, she would hum the song that the birds chirped at first. Just a little songless tune, her smiles would get wider and spread to her eyes, the nightmares became less and less, and they lived on. At one point, a cat wandered onto their property. It was a deep pitch black and only had one eye, and Rey immediately got attached to it. “Can we keep it? Please?”

“Of course,” There was no way that he was going to refuse her.

She named her cat Jaina.

Ben went to the town’s jeweler that day.

A week before he proposed, he made Rey a pie. “It just occurred to me that we’ve never celebrated your birthday before.” He said.

She cocked her head to the side, “What?”

“Your birthday, do you know when you were born?”

“No,” She said.

“Well, how about we celebrate today?” When he plopped the pie in front of her she had this big grin on her face.

“You spoil me too much, Ben Solo.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

He loved seeing her happy.

*

There was a night where Ben was acting strange. Rey wasn’t sure why or what had gotten into him, but she could feel this nervous energy rolling off of him. The moon was bright that night, and Ben was staring out at it as he washed dishes. “What’s up?” She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him.

“Oh, hey. I was just uh---I was finishing here and then I was wondering if you wanted to take a walk with me?”

“Sure,”

It didn’t take Ben long to finish and she could see his hands shaking as they walked out. “Are you okay?” She asked him.

“Y-yeah,” He said, “I’m fine.” This night was different. But he wasn’t telling her why. “Do you ever miss the rest of the group sometimes?”

“Yes,” Rey said, “I do. Why?”

“I was just thinking about that, and how this all started a lot recently.” He said. Rey and Ben walked past some brush and Rey looked up at bright glowing lights hanging just out of reach. Willow wisps. They were all suspended and waiting for them. She could hear excited whispers as Ben kept leading her to a place. She wasn’t sure how. “And I was thinking about our story,”

“I don’t really like thinking about that time,” Rey said, “I wasn’t the greatest person.”

“I wasn’t either,” Ben told her, “but I do like thinking about it. Because I’m so grateful for everything that brought me to you,” Rey felt her heart get warm when he said that. Ben had a habit of doing that to her. Finding ways to make her feel better about herself. “And I was just thinking about our story, it’s really something for the ages if you think about it. One they’d write about in storybooks,”

“Don’t people usually only write and read about tragic love?”

“No,” Ben said, “it’s what so many people think is the only type of love these days. Isn’t it? But this is something much clearer and purer than any sort of cheap novel that a man writes to make himself feel like a great author. This is something else.” Rey found herself hanging on every word that Ben was saying. She didn’t really pay attention to where they were going, but they ended up by a quarry where the moonlight lit up the white lilies and wisteria. And there was everyone else. Kaydel, Jannah, Rose, and Poe. They were all holding lanterns and giggling.

“What’s going on?” Rey asked. Her eyes were wide.

“Why don’t you ask Ben?” Kaydel said.

Rey turned her attention back to him, only to see him on one knee, with a ring in his hand. It all clicked together. “So um, yeah I sent a raven for everyone to come here. All of the parts of our story that has been told so far, at least, all of the important parts. Because I thought that you’d want them here for this part of our story, the part that isn’t told yet. Rey, I love you more than anything. You give my life more meaning than anything else, and in every life time, I will find my way to you over and over again, because you’re my one true love. You’re my soulmate, and I would love nothing more than to ask you if you’ll marry me.”

If anyone had ever asked Rey if she thought she would get a happily ever after, she would’ve said no. Yet here she was, standing in front of the man that had been her salvation. Surrounded by her friends who she loved more than anything. She couldn’t believe that she would be so lucky to have something like this happen.

“Yes,” She said, “in all my lifetimes, yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone that read this, I want to say a big thank you. This is my last ever reylo fic and it means so much to me that you read it. I would love to hear your feedback or any comments. I would also like to thank Lustrosis who has been basically singlehandedly commenting on every chapter. You were so amazing and the reason I saw this all the way through. 
> 
> I would also like to thank my girlfriend because this is the last reylo fic that I'm ever writing and without her reading my fics we never would have met. So thank you for that. I'm going to nap now. Thank you for reading.


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